from donald trump, he's being criticized. >> listen, i know that the white house, elise, is saying that there are no mixed messages, we're all on the same page, tillerson, mattis, trump, but again, you have this, you know, gloria's right, this tripling down, and yet you have what you are hearing, what you were just reporting, that the back channels and the -- let's bring them to the table and try diplomacy. how do you square those? >> reporter: okay, i think, you know, as gloria said, we need to really parse out what the president said and he kind of stopped himself. he said if he even threatens -- and then he kind of said, overt threats. now, if you saw kind of over the last two days, secretary tillerson, especially defense secretary mattis, have been kind of clarifying what that means. and that means, if you threaten with actual force, if you take action. north korea's been threatening the u.s. and its allies for years. i mean, if we listen to every, you know, threat by north korea, i mean, we wouldn't be able to go on with our lives.