Welcome to the program. Lets start with north korea. Seems to bet rolling of this confrontation with north korea. What do we understand about it . John it is one for the on the gas and one foot on the brake it feels like with this administration. The president on thursday saying maybe his remarks on tuesday or not incendiary enough where he threatened to north korea and said if they threaten the United States again, they will see fire and fury the likes of which the world has never seen. An extra anything to say on almost the 72nd anniversary to the day of the bombing of nagasaki. Trump north korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. Theas been very threatening on a normal statement. As i said, they will be net with powerfury, and frankly, the likes of which this world has never seen before. Thank you. John the president said today maybe his rhetoric was not tough enough. When you talk to Administration Officials involved in the delicate north korea question, they are going in the opposite direction. Secretary of state tillerson said people can sleep soundly, not to Pay Attention to the rhetoric. A source in the Administration Today was basically acting as if the president have not said anything and kind of continuing on a path with north korea that looks more traditional. You saw the yuan sanctions over the weekend. He saw secretary tillerson last week say to north korea we are not interested in regime change. We are not going to attack you, kind of dialing down the rhetoric. It seems to be the message you get from everybody but the president. Charlie how about the secretary of defense . John secretary mattis when asked about the president s remarks said the president is in charge of rhetoric, im in charge of what i say. Mattis said to the north Korean Leader, do not keep doing things that will endanger the future of your country. Very broad. But when it comes from secretary standingo has a lot of when he talks about following through on threats, it carried the weight of the military but without boxing himself in. When President Trump said if north korea offered more threats and a couple of hours later north korea threatened guam, they had already crossed the redline the president put before them. Mattis is tough and sending the signal of toughness, but he is also working closely with the secretary of state. Because mattis has talked about how catastrophic any kind of military engagement with north korea would be, he is thinking about all military options but that does not i should say that does include a kind of containment possibility. He is not just thinking about the most aggressive military option. Charlie i send the president believes he has to get the attention of the north Korean Leader. And he has decided this is the only way to get his attention, using the kind of language he uses and would understand. John i think that is rightjohn . We have heard secretary tillerson say a version of that. The question is, to what end . The language is either meaningful and therefore you follow up on the threat. If you do not follow up on the threat, what signal are you sending . Because the president did not follow up on his threat, we are in this strange position at the moment where it is not clear. But i think your assessment of his intent is probably right. Charlie the question is who he is sending the signal to as well. John he is sending it to china as well as pyongyang. From talking to Administration Officials, they feeling china has not yet fully embraced its embraced and fully putting more pressure on north korea. Andthat part of their task what people seem to be spending a great deal of time on is figuring out what the levers are to get china to keep putting pressure on north korea, do everything it can to keep north korea in the box a little bit. Charlie and determine the rationality of their leader as to whether he intends to attack the United States or simply wants to have a Nuclear Weapon because he believes the United States has evil intentions towards him, and this is the only way he can protect himself and save himself in power. John the question of what is going on in the might of the north Korean Leader is crucial. You have hit on exactly the right thing. If they think he is a rational blusternd all of this is towards a shortterm goal. If they evaluate him and say the reason he wants a Nuclear Weapon is so he can reunite the peninsula and use it to blackmail other countries, blackmail the United States, that is an argument for preventive action. At least in talking to some members of the administration, they believe kim jongun is a much more rational actor than the crazy man theory would suggest. , even buy into that idea if he has a Nuclear Weapon, he would not just go firing it off as some of the scenarios would suggest. What you put your finger on is crucial. The debate over what kind of rational actor he is. The problem is the intelligence as ifs, they dont feel it is completely solid. Every day they are feeling more nervous because they are learning the program is moving faster than some of their original assessments suggested. Charlie is the Administration United on the rhetoric used by the president . John not at all. Ittrying to get Administration Officials to say whether this was strategic i remember during george bushs presidency, in the administration they used to talk about dick cheney seem like he had a knife in his teeth because it allowed people in the administration to talk to allies in the middle east and say we do not want to let cheney loose. It was a nice good cop bad cop. That is a traditional strategy in some places. When i get back mostly is this is improvisation by the president that has some of them scratching their heads. Charlie especially the use of the language. John the use of the language and the red line drawing. Is no active Foreign Policy the president and his aides have criticized more than president obamas improvisational red line drawing when it came to syria and not following up on it was squandering of u. S. Prestige. It seems curious the president would draw a redline he was not ready to follow up on, at least he has not in response to the immediate threat from the north koreans to encircle guam and fire. Charlie if you want to get health care passed, why do you believe it is in your interest to criticize the one person most likely to help you get passed, mcconnell . John there does not seem to be any strategic and if it benefit to attacking Mitch Mcconnell. And explanation could be we have seen this in a number of instances the president distance himself from his own role in health care reform. When he ran as a candidate and came into office, he promised he alone, because of his negotiating and marketing skills, would be able to pass health care. That he alone could do it and it was all in him and his skills. Now that it has not passed, he is saying is all Mitch Mcconnells fault. This is important. It matters to tax reform and sets the stage for the 2018 campaign. When theysident talk about draining the swamp, sometimes they are talking about Mitch Mcconnell. This is going to be a campaign in 2018 where you have the running against his own party in congress . That can create ugliness in a Campaign Year where everybody wants to be playing on the same team. Charlie as harry truman would say, the donothing congress. John truman was running against republicans. Charlie running against congress. John absolutely. The challenge is Mitch Mcconnell just got reelected relatively recently, so he is not up in 18. You put pressure on him. Mitch mcconnell knows where a lot of things, a lot of the levers are that can be double bedevil a president. Mitch mcconnell, you want him to be on your team. You can do lots of things. There are investigations in the senate. You can do lots of things to help those investigations continue or keep them out of the limelight. There is a lot you can do in the appropriations process that would help the president or not as he feels fit. Charlie the Mueller Investigation continues. Week notice of the fact Paul Manaforts house was searched. What do you read into that . Obviously, the , aion of an early dawn raid socalled no knock raid, suggests they had serious enough information about what they were looking for that they had the judge give the ok for that. I dont know if that means there is that they have some inkling of collusion. They may have found something separate and apart from the campaign and mueller is going after it because under his mandate he can go after crimes if he sees them. This is not necessarily proof theres something there to the collusion. Charlie generally, if you have the f. B. I. Do a no knock raid, you believe you will not have documents or information given to you that you have requested or are seeking. John and the documents are charged enough for important enough that mr. Manafort would not hand them over freely. You get a judge and say this is what we are looking for in that suggests there may have been a crime committed. We just dont know the nature of the actual crime. If it is with respect to the election, it is another piece of data in that you had a judge agreed there was enough that it is hard to characterize this as a witch hunt. The other thing that interests me about Paul Manafort is the russian, paulhe asafort is described described by the president was so disinterested in the meeting when he attended that he spent all his time on the phone. Now we have heard that mr. Manafort has turned over his notes from that meeting to the congressional committees and that was in the documents muellers team has collected which suggests there was something important enough about the meeting that notes were worth taking. If those notes are in contradiction to the story about what that meeting was about, that does put you right in the center of the collusion question. Charlie notes are one thing manafort may have made for his own reference. Jared kushner left the meeting, according to his testimony in closed session, because nothing was going on and he was bored. John that is right. You have three possibilities. One is that manaforts notes contain nothing interesting. Two is they contain Something Interesting and Jared Kushner was smart enough to leave. Or three, they contain things that may be in contradiction with Jared Kushner. This meeting is so important because before that the administration said there were no contacts with russians seeking to influence the election. Now we know at least there was this one meeting sold specifically with the intent of handing over information collected by the russian government on hillary clinton. That is what it was sold as. We dont know what happened in the meeting. We only have the word of the participants. It seems smaller mueller is trying to find out what notes fill out the picture so we dont have to take it was words for it. Charlie do we understand Paul Manafort is or is not cooperating with the Mueller Investigation . John his lawyer says he is cooperating. He is definitely cooperating with the congressional committees in handing over things. Hes not cooperating at some level or they would not have gone knocking before the sun came up. It is unclear. We know what his lawyer says. Miller and his team have some view he is not cooperating fully or they would not have been making that kind of visit. Charlie talking about people have influence in the new york crowd and generals with influence, you referenced earlier the divisions that might be about north korea. Aboutey serious divisions how to handle north korea or is it simply about the president s rhetoric . John at the moment, it seems to be about the rhetoric. Although the rhetoric has some connection to the next move. It is not unlike on russia. This is preliminary. I dont want to sound like i have it wrapped up. On the one hand you see the Vice President talking about the strength of nato pushing back against russia. You have material moving into the nato nations threatened. The u. S. Putting its money where its mouth is in terms of supporting countries that might feel threatened by russia. You have the pentagon discussing army ukrainians against russians in ukraine. But then you have the president s remarks on russia which are completely at odds with all of that part of the administration. Here you have a similar thing. You see the way in which they are working on the diplomatic track with north korea. They are working at the u. N. It seems to be within the groups groovees of the normal foreignpolicy approach, and then you have the president s rhetoric. It is hard to know if it is a split between the president and his team or whether there is more behind the president s remarks in terms of strategy. Charlie where does tax reform stand . Paul ryan says tax reform will be easier than health care. Having covered lots of tax reform and spent a lot of time with dave camp and max baucus, they worked for five years and tax reform. The problem with tax reform is a couple of things. It is very hard to pay for if you want to do it in the way the president wants to. The president is following the same pattern he did with health care, promising the moon. Huge tax reductions and growth and it will add up. That is what he did with health care. It will cost less, you get to see her doctor. They were not able to fulfill those promises. This is setting up the same way. There are swarms of lobbyists engaged in the tax question trying to get their pieces of the legislation put in. Everybody wants to pass tax reform. It is just very hard to do. It cannot be done at the levels the president wants in terms of cutting the corporate rate as much as he wants because it costs so much money. Trillions of dollars more with the rates he wants. You have to fill that up with andcuts spending cuts, congress is not going to support those. They will go for it, but it will not be as easy as everyone is saying which breaks the rule you are supposed to underpromise and overdeliver. Charlie does this put the president against republican orthodoxy . In thee told the story wall street journal about how he was talking to a friend, bob kraft charlie a billionaire friend. John the owner of the patriots who said we are taxed too much. Dont worry about taxing the rich. President tsai i agree with him the president said i agree with him. Basically, tax the rich to pay for the middle class to put it in clumsy terms. That is not traditional republican orthodoxy. It is not paul ryans view at all. It would be one of those fascinating things the president might do. Fascinating in terms of making the traditional mold. But we dont know. He just said that in one interview in that slightly off way so we offhand will see. If you were continue down the if he were to continue down that road, it would be breaking with republican orthodoxy. Way of lookings at this talking about managing up and down. Say here iseems to the way this place should operate. Beenrms of leaks, it has quite leaky since Reince Priebus left. Some are with respect to a charming master h. R. Mcmaster. There is a russiatinged element. On social media, attacks on mcmaster which seem coordinated and have some similarities to the kind of coordinated attacks before the election. You have that going on. You have the leaks of the transcripts last week. There is a sense in the white house that things are moving more smoothly in terms of managing down. In terms of managing up, the president s twitter feed was more relaxed for a while. Now it is back on its normal course. Thursday, hes on almost in terms of not being dramatic. On the other hand, he said he was fine with Vladimir Putin kicking 755 u. S. Personnel out of russia. He said it will help us cut the payroll. I dont think that is true, they stay on the payroll. Second of all, that was sort of flippant and off script. No drama in one place that dramatic in another place. Charlie thank you for joining us tonight. We will be right back. Stay with us. Carol and her husband are going to new york next month. We were hoping you could recommend a show for them to see while they are there. Definitely. What sort of shows are you into . We heard jersey boys is good. That is a musical. That is not what i am into. What are you into . Dialogues that explore the human condition. Great things are few and far between. Theater is in a troubled state in america right now. Most things are trash. You would be surprised at who they allow to do shows on broadway. Cats just opened and it is supposed to be good. I have heard good things about that one. Great, thanks. Charlie Jessica Williams is here. She was hired as a correspondent on the daily show when she was just a 22yearold college student. She created many popular pieces lgbtq for sexism, and that program. She is the cohost of the popular comedy podcast. This summer, she stars in the netflix film the incredible Jessica James. She plays a struggling playwright trying to get over her exboyfriend. Writing describes her performance as a force of nature. Here is the trailer. I am tall and pretty. I am smart. Obviously, i will have many great loves in my life. I be offended . I was hoping it would help me get over this guy. Im getting a lot of inquiries regarding your status. My raw feminine energy. Do you have more than one vibrator . Has one man ever fulfilled all of your needs . The incredible Jessica James. I am 25 and in this weird transitional phase. I need to tell you how i feel. Fine. How do you feel . I dont know. Subverting the patriarchal paradigm. It is never too soon to start questioning. The syst