Th this is what he saidki within t last 45 minutes. Were going to the dmz border, and ill be meeting with chairman kim. I look forward to it very much. I look forwardwa to seeing him. Weve developed a very good relationship. And we understand each other. I do believe he understands me and i thinkie i maybe understan him. And sometimes that can lead to very good things. Many topics were covered along with his discussions of president xi. This in addition to the statement that we were just discussing. But if youre justre joining ust the top of the hour j the president , President Trump, saying that president obama had wanted to meet with kim jong un and that indeed from his recollections, from what he knows, President Trump saying, thatru kim jong un did not wanto meet with him. As well as security issues, relationships with south korea itself. Th lets go to hans nichols who is there with the president in seoul, t south korea. Really a lot to cover in a short a time here. But again, asa i was just sayi, hans, the big headline is hes saying yes, we are going to be meeting withoi kim jong un. And its a historic meeting. Having a u. S. President potentially walk into north en korean territory will be historic. We know donald trump has a flair for the dramatic. The would satisfy president s need for that sort of theatrics, that sort of dramatic moment. Just atht little bit on the timeline here. You know, the criticism that some of the obama administrations officials make about their own government and their ownou approach was that ty neglected north korea. This wasnt necessarily a high priority. And when president ss obama, or then president elect obama and the still sitting president , president obama, and President Trump, got together and had that meeting, trump was warned by obama that he needed to make sure to get north korea right. Part of that had to do with the acceleration of the Ballistic Missile program by the North Koreans. And youhe saw in the early part of the Trump Administration an accelerationmp of testing, an advancement of testing. I want to say in 2017 there are some 16 to 20 different Ballistic Missile tests, depending on how you count. And crucially, they achieved intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, something that couldr hit thess mainland of the unite states. Its at that point you that really saw the rhetoric from the Trump Administration increase. Now,mi then you did see a cessation from thedi north on their stopping of their testing to some extent. Testing some engines. Weve talked about this. Shortrange testing as well. The trumpin Administration Like to claim creditp for that. And theyfo may very well be rig. But we dont know for certain what motivated the change by kim jong un. Now, at the same time these talks are ongoing. And richard, a crucial thing to look for in the next couple hours is how long this meeting is. President trump clearly downplaying expectations saying it will just be a couple of minutes. If this meeting goes on longer, it veers in not quite a summit but a summit light. And that gives the prospect, the possibility that they will talk aboutth real issues, namely, ho is north korea going to completely denuclearize and crucially whatmp will the verification regime be. There are a lot of issues between the north and the u. S. On this. You saw it collapse in hanoi. They have serious and substantive differences. They need to iron those out. This is an attempt to get that back onem track. And it is going to be quite a historic moment there in the dmz. Richard . You know, with that, hans, lets goth straight back to the dmz with Richard Engel, our chief foreign correspondent. Richard, do we know in terms of timing, is it any moment that we expect President Trump to be arriving there, t richard . As well as kim jong un . I see theres buses behind you. Ie dont know if that was ther earlier when we were speaking. Reporter no, there have been buss and . Traffic moving in and out of this viarea. On the south korean side the dmz is something of a Tourist Destination as well. People can come here. There are food vendors overlooking the dmz. Families can come. They can picnic. They can barbecue. So this is always quite an active area. Then inside the dmz it is a closed military zone and that is where they the president and kim jong un are goingt to be meeting. Just a b little bit more information about the redmz because it is smfg an anachronism in history. It is very muchto a cold warli creation, more akin to checkpoint charlie than anything else that we have in the world today today. At the end of hostilities in the korean war this area was set up specifically so that the two sides wouldnt cross each othersde border again and that theyin could have a neutral are where they could have dialogue, a neutral area that would be under an international control. In thisnt case it is under the United Nations control and has been since 1953. And it creates this unique space where the north and south Korean Leaders can get together, not feelt necessarily threatened b can go there and have dialogue. There are actually even some houses, some tents that straddle both sides of the border. And they were erected with the idea should the tension ever get so high that it looks like the north and south are on the brink of war they could get into the same building but each stay on their own side of the border and have a dialogue to try to reduce the tensionto and try to avert a avert another war, the breakout once again of the korean war. So this still exists. It is like i said, an anachronism in history to have this International Zone with an actual line of demarcation between the two. And that is what were going to see in action today with kim jong un probably coming out of the building on the north korean side, walk up to the line of demarcation, and President Trump coming from the south korean side walking up to that very small wall. And if they follow what has happened in the past, i think they will probably reach over, shake hands, and tha and then h symbolic crossing over. We do see some helicopters coming in right now. We havemi seen a lot of helicopters coming in today. So unclear if that is the president or part of an advance team. But i can tell you the local journalists starting to train their cameras in that direction. Wevera been seeing a tremendou amount of activity with vehicles, with helicopters coming in and out of the dmz for the last couple of hours for this e visit. By schedule we were expecting it anytime soon but they were running a bit behind in terms of this meeting happening and the visit from the president himself. There at the dmz. Richard engel, who is there. Victor chcha, who is on the pho with us right hanow. Ands msnbc Current Affairs analyst as well as a former director of asian afashz for the National SecurityCouncil Joins us on the phone. Still with us on the phone at the moment. Vict victor, how many missiles is ofimated whats the range the number of missiles that north korea has that have Nuclear Capability . Well, north korea has short, medium, and longrange Ballistic Missiles that are arrayed in three strategic belts going up the northern part of the peninsula. They have around 300 deployed short and Medium Range Missiles thatan can target anything including u. S. Troops in japan and south korea. So when the president says that the shortrangeth missiles that north korea fires dont really matter, he only cares about the longrange ones, thats not really t accurate because those shortrange ones pose a threat to u. S. Citizens who live in japan, korea, and then if you talk about interimmediate yachtrange Ballistic Missiles as far as hawaii and guam. Those things matter as well. So these are a real threat. I mean, these are not these are a threat and they continue to grow. And meeting the north Korean Leader at the dmz when none of this stuff has been resolved is like saying you won the super bowl without playing the game. Theres been no progress actually in nuclear talks, and the crowningpr achievement of a actual agreement would be the thing that theyre about to do, which is the two leaders meeting at the dmz. But this is all being done backwards, if you will, in that theyre trying to claim victory for things that have not yet happened. The old fake it until you make it, if you will. As youre saying. For now at least. Lets bring in by phone retired army colonel jack jacobs. Msnbc military analyst. You heard colonel, how jack excuse me, how victor was happening the Nuclear Capability, the interimmediate yacht missiles as well as the longrange missiles that could be of great consequence. And they continue to develop their capabilities. Its one thing toft delivery means. Its another thing to have the warheads. But youve got to be able to make the o two. Its not entirely clear whether or not all of their delivery vehicles can have Nuclear Capability. But theres no doubt about the fact that they all threaten not just american interests but our allies interests as well in the entire region. Even t forgetting about capabily of hitting the mainland of the United States. One thing that richard that victor cha mentioned, we should keep in mind, and that is no progress has been made whatsoever. And one of the reasons why this is so is that north korea has no interest in giving up any of its nuclear capabilities. Dont forget that the Nuclear Weapons are its Life Insurance. Theres no motivation for the North Koreans to give up its Nuclear Weapons. And its difficult to envision a situation in which anybody can guarantee north korea anything sufficient sufficiently to motivate north korea to giv up its weapons. Thats why they developed them in the first splace. Now, china, there was an old saying that all routes to north korea go through beijing, china doesnt have a lot of interest in the United States increasing any of its influence on the korean peninsula. North korea doesnt as well. And the net result of that as victor said earlier was that what were going to see today is a photo opportunity and its hard to see how its going to result in anything positive. If what were looking for is north korea to give up any of its Nuclear Capability. Hans nichols. Thank you so much, colonel. Hans nichols still with us. Hans, one of the points, if we can pull two together here, not only what was made by the colonel but also by victor and Richard Engel, is this divided house. There at panmunjom, there at the jsa, at the dmz, these houses, these buildings where it is but theres a line down the middle. And thats really the way many koreans feel on the peninsula, that they are living in a divided house, that they want to be rejoined in some form or fashion here. And they must wonder, especially the 10 million in the smallfa tn that youre in there in seoul, about what a militarized north korea can mean to the end of that or to the conflagration that we so much worry about. Reporter there is a greath about the cern closeness andco proximity of noh korean artillery. Thats not just u. S. Officials. Thats south korean officials. And thats oneea of the reasons the moon government was brought to power, because they have this open sunshine policy that was started by severalha liberal governments evago. But of direct negotiations. You talk about divisions. One place where they are united, and a that is the Trump Administration and the moon government. They are on the same page here. I think it bears noting that in some ways the n south korean an the u. S. Relationship on this, at least between this sitting government, has been very close and theyve been working in tandem to make sure that these negotiations have someth sort o prospects for success. No one is under any other impression this is going to beu an incredibly difficult hallenge, as some of our other guests have been anoting, the Life Insurance policy, the existential threat north korea feels just by the presence of those 28,000 troops. A little bit on the logistics here, its about a 20 to 25minute helicopter ride away from yongsan garrison. The anpool, the group that travs with the president , left there about five minuteshe ago. So just doing some public math here, dorichard, i think we can expect the president to land at the dedmz in about 20 minutes o so. Somete back and forth on that. But that gives you a sense of just how quickly this is all moving. Now, the president said hedui been thinking about thisre for long timehi and only broached i yesterday publicly on twitter. We dont know to what extent there w had been back channel conversations to grease this up. And the Trump Administration wouldnt exactly come clean on that on how much of this had been long planned because they like the dramatic. President trump has a flair for theha dramatic. And one thing about sort of the escalation and the rhetoric and the tension, it does bear noting about last march the u. S. Turned off all these military exercises. The military likes to call them exercises. President trump calls them war games. Which is something that in the military they dont like. But President Trump did turn off what he called war games. Thats things like Freedom Guardian and fullhi eagle. These arean massive exercises. They basically stopped doing them at a National Level and really wanted tot let the nort know that while yes, they do have an incredible a military assets richard wased talking abt those three aircraft carriers, they tried to dial down the rhetorical import of military training, of war games, as their critics call them. And that whenir you talk to Administration Officials did allow some sort of space for conversation to take place in the beginning ofnv these negotiations. I hate to talk about t the cloc here all theo time but i do thk the length of this meeting matters. If this is just a shorthand shaikh, a photo op for both sides, well see how much comes out of this. If this goes on longer, its an indication theyre talking of substance, theyreal talking of strategy, and theyre talking about how to have a next full summit. And well see. When the president was pressed on whether or not hehe would ha that this year, he didnt w see to want t to box himself in. He wants to take his time. But the president knows the political clock as well as anyone. He knows hes up for reelection. He wants to runs on what he thinks is an accomplishment. Richard . Hans, how do South Koreans feel about this . I was there over the last month. They had two missile tests when i was not too far from where you were at. And they barely even registered it. They barely even talked about it. Theres that dynamic for South Koreans. Theres also theic dynamic here that oh, its the United States again leading what is very essential, very importantle to South Koreans specifically. Reporter i was here in south korea this time about a year ago, a littleab earlier in the march time period and at that time there was a great deal of concern about thehe military an strategicnc implications becaus as everyone well knows and as u. S. K military officials know seoul is in artillery range of north korea and whatever military scenario you have that is a lot of firepower that can rain down heref awfully quickl. It would be very difficult for the u. S. Even with all its assets to take all those artillery pieces out because theyre buried in the mountains. Some of the Rand Corporation estimatesn are Something Like 250,000 civilian casualties in the Opening Hours of a conflict. So thats widespread here. Its felt. But theyve also seemed to live with thatv fear and theyve accepted it. Ha now, on the economic frontac thats a different story. And you talk about economic advisers to the u. S. Government or youlk talk to south korean economists. There is concern about how south korea would absorb north korea in termsth of the economic shortfalls that they have. Because clearly they have struggles in north korea. Thats a separate conversation. Its similar to s what you saw happen in germany when the east and west were reunited where the west hadun to absorb a lot of economic losses of the east and they had some real growth challenges. That is on gpeoples minds her. At the same time, you probably know as well as anyone, there is a desire to have unification on the peninsula and that overriding emotional desire is a pretty powerful pull. Richard . And thefu complexity, certainly. Richard engel, who is 150 miles away from where youre at, hans, lets go to you, richard. And that sensitivity to again not only nuclear shortrange missiles but that which is traditional military ability that north korea has, that does enga endanger seoul, which is not too far away from where your standing. So im just going to pan the camera before i answer. Were look at Chinook Helicopters but quite a few of them. Just from the naked eye you can see one, two, three, four, five, six. Heading right into the dmz. That is not a usual occurrence. So were seeing quite a bit of not all chinooks. Appear to bel blackhawks as we. S