On their side, of course. At one level, you might worry that the words will run out, and missiles will take their place. But you might ask why its just words, and not weapons yet . Could it be that both sides know their own limitations in any form of Military Conflict . Our diplomatic editor mark urban has been working through the logic. American carriers exercising off korea. But these pictures were taken in may, and none of them are there now. The president seems out of sync with his military and his top diplomats. Today, he emphasised the defensive nature of us precautions. I think what the president was reaffirming his that the United States has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack and defend our allies. And we will do so. The American People should sleep well at night. Tillerson is in tune with generations of american statesman who stuck to Teddy Roosevelts maxim, speak softly and carry a big stick. But one reason he can be sanguine is because americas stick is not being brandished right now. America is not in a position to strike. It is only carrier in the area of korea docked injapan at the end of an operational tour. Bombers in guam may have got the norths attention, but while the us has a few dozen aircraft in range that could mount a limited strike, none of the broader preparations you would expect are visible. I dont think there is a credible Military Option for the us to try to suppress north Koreas Nuclear programme. It would invite an unthinkable retaliation. To think that seoul, south koreas capital, is in artillery range, to think that us bases are in the cross hairs, to think that allies, who are very nervous at the moment, are also in the cross hairs. One of the Problems Trump faces is, as belligerent and inflammatory as the rhetoric gets, it is pretty difficult to use the stick. And americas stick, even when brandished, is not as big as it used to be. It could still strike north korea, and hard. But poor aircraft availability, reduced stocks of bombs and missiles, mean readiness for a major conflict is poor. Add to that the vast size of north koreas armed forces, Presenting Hundreds Of Thousands of possible targets, many pointing to the south, americas ability to control any ensuing escalation is limited. Its Defence Secretary has said as much. General mattis has been public in the statements he has made about just how significant the military risks would be Going Forward with any kind of pre emptive strike. He has made those statements on the record and he has talked aboutjust how brutal any kind of Military Activity would be, how close seoul is, for example. So, bereft of a big stick, or one that could be brandished credibly, anyway, you think the president might moderate his tone. North koreas threats to the United States, if they make more, they will be met with fire and fury, like the world has never seen. Why carry on with such language . Maybe he is playing hard cop to chinas soft . But north koreas nukes have changed calculations. The idea that north koreas bomb is a reality, that soon it will have the ability to deliver that bomb across the world, the idea that north korea identifies that bomb with its own survival and will not give it up voluntarily, it is a simple idea, but one of the most difficult to stomach, because it offends the whole notion of americas uncontested Global Leadership and its deep commitment to inhibit in the proliferation of what it sees as rogue states. With north korea now threatening a us base in nice, the war of words may have taken on a life of its own. Some de escalation, at least verbal, is now vital. Well assess the north korean threat shortly, but it has focused attention on guam for unwelcome reasons. Guam itself is a petite, attractive, island in the pacific, around 6000 miles off the coast of california. Its only about 25 miles long, and four miles wide at its narrowest point. Almost a third of it is actually occupied by the us military. The population of about 160,000 has us citizenship, but guam is not a us state it was nabbed by the americans from the spanish in 1898. Apart from us military, tourism is one of its main industries, for reasons that are quite understandable. The territory does not get to vote in us elections, but it does have a non Voting Member of the house of representatives. She is madeleine bordallo, and i spoke to her earlier about Donald Trumps handling of north korea. Were all very concerned. Im concerned, and everyone on guam. Im one of these where i think we can solve everything diplomatically. Coming on with harsh words like the president did, its very dangerous to go through Something Like that. I understand that maybe the north Korean Leader did not even understand exactly what fire and fury means. He reacted again. This is no way to do it. I feel that weve been through threats with north korea before. 0ur former president , 0bama, had to deal diplomatically with this leader and other countries in the region. And it worked perfectly well. Now weve got a real threat. And, you know, people say, well, people are calm on guam. We have a great number of military bases. We have two Major Military bases on guam and we have a large contingency of national guardsmen. We have the thaad Missile Defence operation there, which i was able to get a couple of years ago when these threats first came about. So, weve been told by the military, by Secretary Mattis and admiral harris that they were going to take good care of guam if anything like this happened. This was before the threat. So, im putting my faith in that the military will take good care of guam and its people. You sayjim mattis and the others, the defence establishment, say to you on guam, look, well protect you, well look after you. You are. Not quite a part of the United States, but a territory of the United States. Whats he promised . What can they do . Well, for one thing, you say were not part of the United States. But i feel, even though were not, were an insulararea, but we are a us territory. They have said, well, theyre ramping up their Military Activity. You know . We have huge bases on guam. And now, already, we are hearing that theyre beginning to ramp up. And when they spoke to me, they always tell me, you know, of our close proximity to north korea. 0ur island would be a very strategic area to ramp up Military Activity if a war broke out. Thaad, that missile protection system, does that work . Does that give you much safety . Does it give you a sense of security . Absolutely. Its giving me the sense of security. Theyve been through a number of tests and briefings, and i understand that every one of the briefings has come out 100 accurate. You say you dont like this kind of tough talking thats going on. I wonder what you think the americans should be doing . Because it is a problem, and it is going to be difficult to negotiate with kim jong un. Indeed, they did try to negotiate with the north koreans and persuade them not to have a Nuclear Programme all those years ago, and they reneged on the deal. What is the approach that you would take . Well, that was all the years ago. Now, its now. I dont know that this current president has done any negotiating with kim jong un. I dont know what kind of meetings have been set up, and everything. But, you know, to comment about fire and fury, and all that strong. Its just not making anybody comfortable in this part of the world. You know, the tensions. Itsjust ramping it up. I really think, ive worked many years in politics and i believe in the diplomatic way. I think that talking out things can bring about a peaceful solution. Congresswoman, thank you so much. Very good to talk to you. Youre welcome, evan. Very welcome. Thank you. So what should we make of the mixed signals were hearing from america and where does this go next . Im joined from across the atlantic byjon finer. Untiljanuary, he was Chief Of Staff for secretary of Statejohn Kerry as part of the 0bama administration. Also with us from washington is peter feaver, who held positions on Americas NationalSecurity Council under both president s bush in the 1990s and 2000s. Good evening to you. Jonathan, what would john kerry be doing if he was Secretary Of State . He would be the best person to answer this question, but i have to believe, as a big believer, as a secretary kerry is, in the power of diplomacy, even diplomacy backed by force, but to achieve dramatic objectives, that he would be doing a version of what secretary tillerson has been doing and saying in recent days, making clear the real consequences that would come to the north korean regime if it continues down the path it is on, but also sending reassuring signals to our allies and keeping open the possibility of diplomatic process to try to de escalate the confrontation. Not rattling the sabre with provocative statements in public. You said you would tell them what would happen to them if they carry on, what would happen to them . I think the deterrent messages, this is what the messaging is about. It is about deterring bad behaviour by the north korean regime. They are best carried directly and privately. Not carried in a public form, where they can very easily be misinterpreted. We spend a lot of time and energy, im sure peter can speak to this as well, trying to interpret the statements that come out of pyongyang, much of which involves rhetoric that we choose to discount because it is so over the top. But much of which we dont really know how to understand. We are in a situation that is very unusual for the United States. We have our own administration, not just anyone, but our own president , that are very difficult, not just for the rest of the world or even americans to interpret, but, much more of concern, for the north korean government to interpret. That can lead to misunderstandings. The only thing worse than choosing to go to war in this situation would be stumbling into a war that neither side wants. Peter, could there be strategy or clever tactics in this kind of rhetoric that we had from donald trump yesterday . The fact it was rather different to the rhetoric from rex tillerson, good cop, bad cop, i dont know what is going on. Is something clever going on . There are some plausible rationales. The president could be saying we have tried for 30 years, moderate rhetoric, and it hasnt worked, lets try some sauce for the goose. The language that the president used against kim jong un is the kind of language you hear from north koreans. It could also be the case that he is trying to rattle the chinese, who very much fear this escalation spiral that john was talking about, and who have a lot of leverage on north korea. He could be trying to alarm the chinese into taking action on economic sanctions rant. The president took his own National Security team by surprise with his rhetoric. So it is clear that the team had not drafted this rhetoric. If there was this calculation, it was the president s own. Does confusion or mixed messaging ever have a place to play in dealing with a adversary . Well President Trump believes the United States has been too predictable and during the campaign he criticised president 0bama for being too predictable, predictable that he would make concessions he said. Trump was unpredictable and there is the Mad Men Theory that president nixon was said to develop, where kissinger would meet with foreign leader, saying, you can trust me, but we dont know what president nixon will do. But it is a very dangerous game to play and it is best done if all the team has gamed it out. Have thought about it. Jonathan, you mentioned the risk of a miscalculation that causes a mistake into conflict. Talk us through that and how it could occur in the worst case . I think there are two dangerous scenarios for the United States, ambiguity, but that only works if there is a strategy behind it and there is a plan to implement on and take advantage of the ambiguous situation. The risk is that the president makes these statements and the north koreans say it is just bluster and continue and call the president s bluff and then the credibility of the president s threats is diminished or the north koreans take it too seriously and believe he is on the cusp of launching an attack and decide it is in their best interest to move first and you are in this conflict that neither sides wants. Because it is in neither sides interest to go to war, but it happens anyway. Thats what were worried about. At this stage, what is the best way to de escalate this and settle it down and get back to where we were three years ago . Well, theres two things that are concerning about where we are now. First, the administration has said that it is intolerable that north korea possesses a nuclear weapon. Well, they already possess one. So that kind of language, declaring what is already a fact intolerable backs the president into a corner. The second thing is the president threatened north korea with more if north korea continued to make verbal threats. Well, verbal threats is the daily activity of the north korean government. I think he would have been wiser to narrow it down to behaviour like missile launches. The president may have backed himself into a corner. What could happen. We have to leave it there. Thank you both very much indeed. At a time when elites are viewed rather suspiciously, those in power need to be careful that their official expenses do not catch the ire of the public. Mps here have never quite recovered since their expenses were publicised. So, is the Eu Commission about to get a caning for its expenses, two months of which were published today . The commission has been coy about releasing more data than that of january and february 2016, and that was forced out of them after a complaint to the european 0mbudsman. Among the items we now know about, a 27,000 euro bill for a two day trip to rome byjean claudejuncker. That was mainly to hire a plane. In fairness, there were nine of them in the delegation. At a Commission Press conference today, the spokeswoman was put on the defensive over the issue. These details were obtained by a spanish ngo, why doesnt the commission make the expenses public . We do publish Mission Expenses when ever we are asked to provide information. You have the whole budget of the eu that contains a section with expenses, namely heading five, that is available to you how much we spend. Helen darbishire is the Executive Director of Access Info Europe, the ngo which has been pushing the European Commission for three years to disclose its expenses. Shejoins us from madrid. John redwood is the conservative mp for woking and is with me. Give us the background and how hard it was and what efforts you had to go to and what stalling there was when you asked for the expenses . Good evening, evan. We first filed a request about three years ago. We realised that no one had asked for this information and to correct what the spokesperson said in the conference today, the information isnt actually available. We used the equivalent of the eus equivalent of the british Freedom Of Information Act and asked for this. We got some total numbers at first. But there was a reluctance to give us the details of expenditure. So we have had quite a battle trying to use arguments as to why we should be given this and finally we have been given the expenses for the first two months of 2016. We asked for, in fact 120 requesters asked for the expenses of of 2016. John redwood, are you shocked by this, we have the private jet to italy. There was a bill for Foreign Affairs representative to get to a summit. Does that shock you . No, i suspected that was going on all along. I remember when i negotiated for britain many years ago i went on the normal public transport fare, but there was a lot of executive jets, including one for commissioners. So it doesnt surprise me. All the time british taxpayers are helping to pay for the bill as we will until we leave. Its a matter of concern and they should be as transparent as the United Kingdom government has to be in telling people where the money is spent and why. Helen, were you shocked when you saw the figures, only the two months and we dont know if it was a high or low month, did you think they looked high . No, i didnt think theyre that high actually. I did a comparison with David Camerons expenditure for the same period and whereas for the commissioner the average is about £1,500, David Cameron was three times that much. Theresa mays are over £6,000 a mission. It is important to keep a perspective, i dont know how many people have asked how much did theresa mays trip to visit donald trump cost . It cost about £43,000 and includes taking an raf plane for which the british taxpayer has to pay. So these expenses are quite. Reasonable and in line with what we would be expecting Government Officials around europe to be paying for similar kinds of trips. Is that fair, because actually, yeah, british ministers do fly on raf planes, they go to north holt and jump on a gover