In kind. We have columnist and associate editor David Ignatius, mike barnicle, kasie hunt, sam stein and clint watts. Good morning, everybody. Good to see you. Lots to talk to you about. Clint, the home of President Trumps former Campaign Managers home was raided by the fbi. Well get to that in just a moment. Lets start with north korea. Were hearing from secretary of defense general jim mattis for the First Time SincePresident Trumps fire and fury remarks tuesday. In a statement general mattis says in part, quote, the United States and our allies have the demonstrated capabilities and unquestionable commitment to defend ourselves from the attack, the dprk, north korea, should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people. The dprk regimes actions will continue to be grossly overmatched by ours and would lose any arms race or conflict it initiates, end quote. Meanwhile, the north korean army has released a new statement through its staterun media saying it will deliver an attack of guam to kim jong un. The statement comes directly after President Trump saying his fire and fury rhetoric is, quote, a load of nonsense and that sound dialogue is not possible since trump is, quote, bereft of reason. The rhetoric only stepped up from what we saw yesterday and you had what we had at the top of the show is an administration scrambling in behind the remarks of fire and fury behind trump to speak, as the state department said, in one voice. I think what weve seen since that very inflammatory rhetoric is President Trump has to be careful that his language doesnt frighten friend and allies, doesnt frighten the chinese so much that they end up pulling back from cooperation with the u. S. That it would look to see on diplomacy. The other thing that might be very significant is this north korean threat to attack guam. The u. S. Territory fairly short flig flight, missiles would fly over japan and land near guam. I think from what im hearing, the administration is making this test, this additional test coming so close to u. S. Territory really a test of the largest strategy. If the North Koreans attempt to strike near u. S. Territory, i think there will be repercussions. I think the route of diplomacy among other things will come to a screeching halt. What the state department is looking for the North Koreans to say, no, we wont test. Instead were willing to begin talks about denuclearization. Its a north korean defiant announcement theyre going their own way. David, what role did the president s incendiary comments the other day play do you think or do you hear from your reporting in the North Koreans seemingly ratcheting up very quickly their response to attacking guam . Mike, i think in this rhetorical back and forth, the North Koreans did what you would expect. President trump was speaking in kim jong un language and it was received in kind. The reaction that concerns me more are the countries wed have to fight with. Were talking about a war with the korean peninsula. It a war you have to conduct closely with your allies. Numbers i found in a late june pew research poll, confidence in the u. S. President to do the right thing regarding World Affairs has fallen in south korea since Donald Trump Took Office from 71 to 17, thats a fall of 75 points. In japan it fallen from 78 to 24, a fall of 54 points. Almost identical in australia. These are countries which would have to be our partners that are already worried. These polls were taken before we were in this phase of fire and fury. Now i think theres even greater anxiety. The problem is if the anxiety isnt controlled, our allies are going to be reluctant to do the things we need them to do. We cannot do this attack alone. Clint, you served some time in south korea. We talked about what it was like 20 years ago. It been tense since the korean war along the dmz but what it must have been like to be in seoul in leadership or to be in tokyo. What do you think is going through the mind of allies that David Ignatius is referencing here . Were talking about nuclear standoff. There a lot short of nuclear standoff. I remember rising up in a helicopter in seoul. Can you see the border. Youre within artillery range. Youre talking about lots of other threats that can manifest. We seen north korea greatly expand their cyber attack abilities, attacks on u. S. Companies, u. S. Banking systems. Even this challenge in the nuclear space, weve seen kim jong un assassinate members of his own family outside the country in recent months. So this sort of tossing out fire and fury, these statements to appear tough. Fine, if youre north korea, you will take that challenge and it helps him reinforce his base that theyre under threat from the United States and youll see action in other ways. If youre north korea now you start to pinprick the u. S. And the allies who are now breaking away from us in ways you might not expect. Far from backing away two days ago from what the president said at bedminister, the Congress Falling in behind him. See ad libbed and he used some catch phrases that he tends to use, the likes of which the word has never seen the class of donald trump on and that set the tone for the rest of the administration. The daily beast was told the secretary of States Office had no clue this was coming. Its an odd way to go about setting Nuclear Deterrent policy. I dont know if its an effective way. But to davids point, one of the things that we should note is that we dont have critical ambassadors in key posts in that region right now. We have acting secretaries and acting ambassadors. South korea, east asian affairs, theyre just vacant. I was talking to richard haas about this. The analogy he gave is this the equivalent of playing a World Series Game with three less starters than the opposition. So this is going in kind of blind. Weve heard from john mccain and a few other prominent senators. Whats the feeling in congress right now . I think honestly the sense from talking to people behind the scenes is the same as i think everybody watching this unfold, which is to say there was a great deal of nervousness. Mccain was careful saying i dont want to step out in front of the president necessarily and say he should be doing this or taking that off the table, but that this rhetoric, you better be able to back that up. If youre say this kind of thing you better absolutely mean it. I think Lindsey Graham gave the president more cover, graham and mccain have tended to favor military options in the past but i think for a lot of democrats, Chuck Schumer put out a oneline statement saying we need to worry about north korea but we really shouldnt talk this way. I think there was a level of fear under that statement that is common. I have heard one argument, i dont know how much i buy it, that there is a utility to trump saying this stuff. The notion that the North Koreans might think that this is a bit of a mad man who can be trig tord gered to do somethinge a deterrent. And there was a vibe of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan even, you never knew if that button was going to be pushed. Does it have resonance, is it logical . I think the mad man theory thinking this guy will do anything, does have some utility. The most important audience, as we were discussing yesterday, may in fact be china. The whole guiding theme of this strategy is that were saying to china this is so important to us, that north korean missiles are intolerant to the president , either you help us deal with it diplomatically or were going to deal with it ourselves militarily. That depend on the chinese thinking we really mean it, well do it. And the president retweets a post saying potus being unpredictable is a big asset. He shouldnt tweet that. And donald trump retweeted that. Thats what i think youre saying, a madman, the unpredictability. If you tweet that youre unpredictab unpredictable, youre giving away the script. Come on, trump. I was struck by the fear that this is lessthanrational behavior coming out of the ovals office, not the white house but the oval office. And general haydens words in the new yorker magazine is that President Trump has little interest in the world, their fear is that the accidental start of a war could easily occur. Im hearing that same fear, mike. The president is just sort of racing toward the brink here, introducing language evocative of nuclear war, fire and fury. Did he really understand what he was doing, the country taking the world so deep into the worlds ultimate nightmare . An interesting thing i read last night is a piece in the Washington Post by my friend michael dobbs, who covered the soviet union and written a book on the cuban missile privacy. On the eve of the cuban missile crisis, president kennedy was reading a book about donald trump is saying whats a strong, rhetorical way of saying the North Koreans i mean it, a very different mindset. I hope that people will say to the president you need to take this in a very sober way. This is about nuclear war. Maybe you can get john herbies hiroshima books on tape and he could listen to it. I guess he doesnt read a lot of books but he could listen to books on tape. Ill pay half. Its an incredible piece. Anybody who would read that today would certainly stop inciting things toward war. I want to get to a potential Serious Development in the special counsel as investigation into russia and the 2016 president ial cam ppaigcampaign. Paul manafort confirmed his home was raided by fbi agents late last month. The predawn search was roarepor by the Washington Post two weeks after it occurred. The day before the raid occurred, manafort had met with Senate IntelligenceCommittee Staffers and turned over his notes from the june 2016 meeting with russians. He later submitted documents to the Senate Judiciary committee. The subpoena was withdrawn for manafort to appear july 26th and his home was raided later. The paper said agents left with a trove of materials, including binders prepared ahead of manaforts congressional testimony. Investigators may have argued to a federal judge they had reason to think manafort could not be trusted to turn over all record in response to a grand jury subpoena. Lets turn to clint watts. What would it take for the fbi to have to basically knock down a door not knock down a door but knock on a door and have Paul Manafort come down in himself pajamas in the middle of the night. What werent they getting from him that they needed . Two things that have come out in the stories, tax documents and foreign banking documents. These are not things you could subpoena like could you at a normal bank. Weve seen connections to cypress, ukraine, a lot of ledgers have shown up. So trying to find out what foreign transaction records are there. The other things are the tax documents. You want to see consistency of whats being filed for tax documents and the evidence of what is is there for. If there is a crime, you can pursue it. But if youre looking to turn someone in the investigation as a cooperating witness or to reveal more information than theyve given so far, you can hit them with a less are charge and move the investigation forward. Can you explain to people the difference between the jump and getting a grand jury subpoena and get a search warrant . A grand jury subpoena is usually for securing record. When youre going in for a search warrant, youre saying i dont know if the person who is going to cough up the record is giving me everything thats there. To do that more intrusive step usually requires a higher level of probable cause to move the case forward. And, clint, im familiar with how congressional investigators are trying to make sure they dont get in bob muellers way but the timing seems very interesting to me, right after the congressional committees have got i dont know what they wanted. Does the fbi think about that in the reverse . Im sure. They probably coordinated and thought through their approach to make sure they werent stymieing other investigations out there. And you want to give whoever it, is the witness or whoever it is, the opportunity to bring forth records on their own. Thats indicative of their cooperation with whatever the investigation might be. Im sure they waited, timed it out and did the search warrant the next way. Does it happen as quickly as we didnt get what we want when we came in so the next day you can get a warrant to go to himself how th his house . You cant but it seems there were two batches of documents requested. You dont want to short circuit whats happening in the senate. To do a search warrant of that nature and build that probable cause, youre talking one to two days before. The Senate Judiciary committee acknowledged receiving documents it requested from the the president s son. On august 4th, donald trump jr. Handed offer approximately 250 pages record to the committee. The committee requested the documents as part of the Senate Investigation into russian interference in the 2016 election. Significance there of donald trump jr. Turning over documents . Its not significant to me. It really depend on what the questions are that are being asked of these individuals. If theyre going to manafort and wanting more banking records, thats going to be more in pages. If youre going to trump junior and just asking about this meeting, 250 pages is a lot about a meeting. It seems theyre cooperating with those investigations. What im more interested now is who are the first witnesses essentially that get called in and met by the mule aeller team. Youve got documents and search warrants and the first ones to walk through the door will tell you a lot about how this investigation is going to go. The conventional wisdom as soon as this raid was broken and, by the way, how much time lapsed between the raid happened and the news broke, but conventional wisdom is theyre trying to build a case and then flip him, more or less, to get to trump. Is thering e anything that you read between the lines to suggest otherwise . No, i think its that way but there are multiple angles to the manafort case. Hes got issues with the soninlaw and now youre seeing the jofr all investigation. Theres three or four ways we can look at this. I would imagine mueller would see this, especially on the financial angle, thats usually where you get your best lead going into terms of an investigation. If theres anyone with financial hookups that could turn bad on him, that would be manafort and thats the easiest way to go. Its going to be interesting to see who among witnesses gets the free pass. Who gets the chance to say, okay, give us a lead here, climb the ladder for us, see whos up there you can help us find and well cut you a deal. It was interesting that Jared Kushner got his statement out there and put his story out there first, its very telling of how youre seeing the lines parting inside the trump ranks. And kushner got out there with what was a very clear statement. He tried to get very aggressive about putting his statement out there. It was a nair at thrrative,. Of all the cast of characters in the trump orbit, trump has stayed loyal to all of them, except for manafort. He downplayed the role that manafort played, trump has been similar. If there is going to be a breach of loyalty that, could be the place. The white house said he had a limited role, meanwhile he was the Campaign Manager for several months. Still ahead, tensions between President Trump and Mitch Mcconnell. And also senator ed markey, senator chris van who will i dont know and Republican Congressman peter king. Hey, bill. Hurricane franklin made landfall in middlesexico. Its already down to a tropical storm. Later today it will just be a dr tropical depression. None of the moisture is making its way to our country so were not worried about it here. Were going to track some severe storms over the next couple of days. First today colorado and kansas. Friday this cold front located over st. Louis, eindianapolis ad detroit. On saturday, not a good beach day. Cold front coming through with showers and thunderstorms saturday afternoon. The great weather on sunday will be found in the great lakes and ohio valley, typical afternoon storms in the southeast. I havent mentioned much about the west. Youll have great weather right through the weekend. New york city is one of those spots thats had great weather over the last couple of days. That tcontinuese today. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. The new guy . What new guy . I hired some help. He really knows his wine. This is the new guy . Hello, my name is watson. You know wine, huh . I know that you should check vineyard block 12. Block 12 . My analysis of satellite imagery shows it would benefit from decreased irrigation. I was wondering about that. Easy boy. Nice doggy. What do you think . Not bad. Start here. At fidelity, we let you know where you stand, so when it comes to your Retirement Plan, youll always be absolutely. Clear. Its your retirement. Know where you stand. Youll always be absolutely. Clear. Youre searching for something. Whoooo. Like the perfect deal. On the perfect hotel. So wouldnt it be perfect if. There was a single site. Where you could find the. Right hotel for you at the best price . There is. Because tripadvisor now compares. Prices from over 200 booking. Sites. To save you up to 30 . On the hotel you want. Trust this birds words. Tripadvisor. The latest r