Welcome to your new day. Allison is off. Brianna joins us this morning. If you havent tuned in yet, shes thrown me under the bus once. Maybe twice. Lets see how it goes this hour. We do begin with breaking news. North koreas state news agency releasing a statement saying President Trump is driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the, quote, brink of nuclear war. This comes hours after President Trump doubled down on his warning to north korea saying the threat to unleash fire and fury may not have been tough enough. Defense secretary James M Mattis says despite the effort the effort on north korea is diplomatically lead. The Global Resources of cnn have all of this covered for you. We want to start with will ripley live for us in beijing with the latest. Will. Reporter brianna, i want to get right to this brand new statement that has been released by north korea just within the last few minutes. The title of this statement on the north Korean News Agency is u. S. Nuclear war fanatic. Trump is driving the situation on the korean pe nins korean from 1950 to 1953 killed 3 Million People and north korea tells its citizens that the u. S. Almost dropped a nuclear bomb on them back then and they believe, they tell their citizens that the u. S. Is ready to do it again. Another portion of this article thats important, quote, all these facts go to prove that the u. S. Is indeed the master mind of the Nuclear Threat, the heinous nuclear war fanatic. So there you go. President trump remarks really do play in the long stannistandt the United States is preparing for nuclear war. Things are happening that might remind people of when they were growing up during the cold weer. The daily pacific in guam. 14 minutes. Thats how long guam Homeland Security says it would take for a north korean Ballistic Missile to reach the island. They also are issuing fact sheets, pamphlets that theyre handing out. One of the pieces of advice, do not look at the flash or fire ball. Its frightening for people to think about the possibility of a nuclear war. North korea has been making threats like this for a very long time. At this point this remains a war of words. Lets get a little bit more perspective on nobo that. I get you about this. This is what north korea does. They talk in in this fashion often. Now you have a different dynamic where the president of the United States is matching the talk. Now you see the North Koreans by your own reporting ratcheting it up to an even higher level of talk. Do you believe or have a suspicion that it remains in that sphere, or is it even slightly more likely now that there is a destabilizing influence and potential action because of the response from the United States . We need to watch north koreas actions in the coming days. This kind of rhetoric that were hearing today is very familiar rhetoric from north korea. It doesnt concern me as much as what we saw earlier in the week where they laid out that detailed plan to conduct what would be their most provocative muscle test over putting those missiles over japan, flying 2,100 miles and bringing them down less than 20 miles from guam. That was alarming. If north korea does follow through with that plan, that does ratchet thing up in the region. U. S. Intelligence is indicating that for now in the areas theyre able to observe from spy satellites they do not see preparations for a north Korean Missile launch. Theyre going to give a plan to kim jongun and then he would make the final decision. If north korea goes through with that, that does escalate the situation. If north korea continues to put out statements like this, this is familiar. This is something we have seen. From speaking with north korean officials a month and a half ago, while theyre not afraid to use these, these are intended to be a deterrent to keep the United States from firing the first shot. Theyre saying we can do a lot of damage and kill a lot of people if you mess with north korea. Thats the message they may be trying to send. August is a very tense month. The regularly scheduled joint military exercises are due to kick off this month. That is always a tense time here and north korea often does show military force through things like missile launches when the u. S. Military exercises are taking place. Thats why you have china right here in beijing, officials reiterating just within the last few hours calling for calm and caution and avoid behavior that will escalate the station and push the peninsula down the road towards an accidental war. That may be the actor we watch most closely. Lets see if the president s tough talk makes china act differently. Will ripley, thank you very much. So north koreas latest threat comes as President Trump promises to continue his tough talk when it comes to the regime. Cnn Barbara Starr joining us from the pentagon with more. He said past president s were weak. President obama wouldnt talk about it. I will talk. Where it gets us, well see. Good morning, chris. Heres a couple of points of reality. We are being reminded as will said, this exercise is coming up in the next couple days, we will see u. S. Forces arrive on the peninsula regularly scheduled. Theyre doing an exercise. Everybody knows theyre coming. But its a visual picture that may upset north korea. We also know that the president as any president would has not ruled out a preemptive strike against north korea. The United States would never rule anything out. The words are focusing on if north korea were to attack guam, what the consequences would be for the regime. The president doubling down going way beyond fire and fury. I read about where in guam by august 15th, lets see what he does with guam. If he does something in guam, it will be an event the likes of which nobodys seen before, what will happen in north korea. When you say that, what do you mean . Youll see. Youll see. And hell see. He will see. Its not a dare. Its a statement. It has nothing to do with dare. Thats a statement. Now, defense secretary james mattis taking a bit of a longer view. Very much knowing the guam threat is out tlrhere, the u. S. Military ready to deal with that, but also reminding everybody there is a much longer term strategy here. The american effort is diplomatically led. It has diplomatic traction and is gaining diplomatic results. I want to stay right there right now. The tragedy of war is well enough known it doesnt need another characterization beyond the fact that it would be catastrophic. And obviously the u. S. Intelligence community, the u. S. Military watching all of this around the clock. They are always watching. Barbara starr at the pentagon, thank you. North koreas neighbors are caught in the cross hairs of this standoff. South korea and japan are used to living with intimidation from pyongyang, but now theyre preparing in earn skpeest and v to retaliate. Live for us in tokyo. Tell us how theyre reacting there. Were seeing japan take a defensive posture, a more defensive posture than we have seen in the past because of the specificity of that guam threat from north korea. We spoke to the ministry of defense and they told us that as we are speaking, in the overnight hours here in tokyo, daytime there in the United States, they are moving these ground based missile intercept ors, theyre moving them from central japan where theyre currently housed in a military base and moving to those prefekt ors that the North Koreans specifically said missiles may fly over while they head to guam. The japanese placing these intercept ors there just in case they come close to jan pan. Were seeing a more defensive posture from russia. Were hearing via russian state media they are beefing up the defenses because of the north korean threat. Cwill ripley said the more concerning thing was earlier this week when north korea talked about this detailed plan and this missile getting closer to japan, that is primarily the concern there in japan and has really stood out to them as Something Different than just the normal rhetoric, right . Absolutely. Its very specific. And the fact that these missiles were going to fly over certain prefectures is whats causing alarm. Thats really the game changer here as far as the defensive posture. It wouldnt be the first time north korea had sent missiles over japan. They havent done it recently, but they have done it before. Again, it gets you into this uncomfortable reckoning of what words portend action and what words are just hot talk. Lets bring in our cnn panel here. Politics reporter, editor at large chris se lcelizza, john avalon, and john kirby. You were in this fray and you lived this. Now youre being blamed for it as part of the obama administration. Lets start with that. President trumps criticism that president president s, including obama, were weak. Obama specifically as president wouldnt even talk about it. The president s quote, i will talk. It needs to be done. Well, oversimplified, president obama wasnt afraid to talk about the problem with north korea. He presided in just the last year of his administration over the toughest International Sanctions ever enacted against the regime and he worked his problem very hard for the entire eight years as did his two predecessors. President trump seis not wrong when he complains about the fact that he inherited a much more accelerated program. Hes right to be concern ed abot that. But going back and just blaming past president s is i think its just a ridiculous kind of thing to do because this is a problem that the whole International Community has been facing. So can you speak to that, though . You look at i think a lot of people who havent been following north korea look at the last 25 years and they say well, nothing did happen. Especially supporters of donald trump. Other administrations were not able to make progress. Then you have experts who say theres only one way to pursue things with north korea. Youre dealing with a nation like none other which is sort of the last cult on earth. It has been moving towards Nuclear Weapons because from their perspective thats the only success of the regimes success. And look, when bill clinton announced to the world that the deal he and secretary perry made and would make it so that basically the north korea would denuclearize, clearly that did not happen. But what you have is an administration trying to delay as best they can. I think the Trump Administration and the National SecurityTeam Deserves credit for trying to not have strategic patience and instead really confront this problem with a sense of urgency because weve gotten to the place where a Nuclear Armed icbm could threaten an american city. Theyre been taking a much more aggressive tack. They deserve some credit. The problem is the president launching up the rhetoric, with the nou creates a real danger for the world. One of the Big Questions is does that draw china in . You can project and hope theres a degree of strategy to it. The problem is we consistently see strategy being made srnd the president s reckless comments, not being to be a vehicle for strategy. What johns 100 right. You see always the strategy and the policy moving on, certainly defensible ground. Liberals might not like it. Respect preside republican president is going to do certain things. Then trump moves along. Its along to the right, up, do down, and thats whats difficult. The policy is dealing with the new reality of a nuclearized north korea. The rhetoric and what he says and how he provokes purposely i think doesnt necessarily mesh with the policy, but then the policy has to be bent to fit somewhere in the same universe as the rhetoric. This happens a lot with him. Its not just north korea. But it does make it difficult to sort of marry those two. The strategy and the policy thats going underneath the surface. Its like a glacier. His statements are important but its just the top. Theres a lot of diplomacy going on below it, but the top of it impacts what happens below. I think he understands that. But i dont think he understands fully the impact of what he just says stuff, what that means from a strategic and policy perspective. And it leaves people scrambling to try to figure out to architect policy around it. John . Ill tell you, i think hes ill piggy back on that, hes undermining all the good work his team is trying to do. I agree this is one of the National Security issues, probably the only one that i think his team has really handled with deliberate thoughtful measured work. And when he goes out there and he says these things, hes actually undermining their efforts. You heard secretary mattis in that clip we just played really trying to walk this back and really making it clear that from his perspective he wants diplomacy to lead and that he Still Believes theres room for that. Every time the president gets up and says fire and fury and hell see, hes actually taking oxygen away from that effort and frankly, chris, hes closing down his own decision space. Hes actually removing from his quiver arrows of choices he has going forward. Thats my concern that i dont get yet. Whats your take on this . I get tough talk. I get that hell be congratulated for it by certain sectors. But what happens if you have to act here . Every military expert tells us you have no good option. And on syria he was able to have a certain rhetoric and then there was an action. But north korea isnt syria. So you cant follow that same game plan with a north korea. You cant just, you know, strike an airstrip even with a nonnuclear weapon and then just see how it goes, right . You cant do that. Fire and fury, right, is not a policy. I mean, again, this is the issue. What does that mean . Youll see. Well see. Its a threat. Right. How else can you take it . But then you have mattis and tillerson saying theres no change in the region. It could be nonnuclear, but does that matter . Why would dow that . This is the problem with trump. Even if he doesnt mean, nuclear, even if that was not his intent, reasonable people could think that. He did say very few countries have seen. Like the world has never seen. Yeah. But it only matters specifically, yes, i get china and i get this could be a great provocation to china to say as you said, we want stability more than anything else, so we will do x which they havent done. That would be an amazing conclusion. It matters what north korea thinks. Heres their statement. And their response to the rhetoric. Do we have the statement to put out . Wait for it. Wait for it. We should play some light music. Look, ill characterize it for you. There it is. Trump is driving the situation on the Korean Peninsula to the brink of a nuclear war. Making such out cries as the u. S. Will not rule out a war against the dprk. John kirby, i understand and ive read my history, i get that hyperbole is part of the status quo. However, it does seem as though this is action and reaction. Is it a little bit more dangerous in this context, or is this more of the same . Ive got to tell you when i looked at that statement i was actually a little pleasantly surprised it was as measured as it is given to where the rhetoric got to yesterday and in the wake of the koreans army, the generals very specific threat to guam. So it is more in line with typical north korean statements. I think we can take a little cold comfort in that. But it doesnt mean at all that the tensions are any real any less in any significant way as far as im concerned. John, chris, john, thank you. Also it makes you wonder if in a way is it seeding leadership to china if youre expecting them to come in and be the measured ones . Everybody says they have the most leverage. China is a big player on the world stage. Maybe it is time for them to step up and do their part. That time has passed. Theyre not going to be bullied. This is the other thing. Bully president xi does not work. I do hope china will step in. They have more influence than any other nation in the world and they have not been willing to exert, but theyre not going to be bullied into doing something. Gentlemen, thank you very much. North korea gave its latest response. We just read it to you. What should the u. S. Response be . Our next guest says its time to lower the temperature. New york time new york time New York Times columnist, he feeds your brain every time he is on. He is on next. Before it ends. Choose from the is turbo, es 350 or nx turbo for 299 a month for 36 months if you lease now. Experience amazing at your lexus dealer. Looking for a hotel that fits. Whoooo. Your budget . Tripadvisor now searches over. 200 sites to find you the. Hotel you want at the lowest price. Grazi, gino find a price that fits. Tripadvisor. Itwhats possible. Nk rethink the experience. Rethink your allergy pills. 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