Politics in order to raise money for victims of recent hurricanes. Four of the five former president s made brief remarks, appealing for national unity. Beautiful. I tell you what, what a great night. Fantastic moments there. And a reminder, richard, that thats how things have been for 240 years, that what were going through now is an anomaly, a one off. And what people saw on stage there with five president s representing, you know, americans in the white house from 1976 forward, through january with 2017. Thats the rule. Thats how we do it as americans. Thats how we won the cold war, from harry truman to ronald reagan, unbroken chain of president s working together. And it is hopeful. Its bipartisan. Its also people who defeated other people coming together. So, theyve buried, if you will, the political hatchets. Yeah. And, mark, you could look at every one of those president s up there, especially if they replaced one another. President s dont usually think too much of president s they replaced, you know, whether even going all the way back to ike didnt think first of all, harry truman thought very little of ike and vice versa. They had a contentious relationship. Moving forward, ike didnt think much of jfk. Was there during the cuban missile crisis. Every one of these president s, you know, george w. Bush was just absolutely skewered. The obama people said that they didnt run against john mccain. They trashed george bush for a year and a half. They said when we got elected, it spoke to his character that he opened up the white house and he said its your white house. You tell us. We serve you. And thats the grace that has been shown. Its not being shown right now, but the grace that has made america succeed. My hunch is that when the history of the trump years are written, that night, over the weekend, will be part about it because of the contrast of what you saw that evening as compared to what weve seen over the last several months. And the real linchpin of the relationship is that the clintons and the bushes. Although president clinton beat president bush, those families have grown close and they share a lot. And they share a common view of whats going on in america today. Here is president clinton speaking. Watch bush 43 and obama behind him. Its fun. There is still work to be done in texas and in florida. And our friends in puerto rico and the american Virgin Islands have only begun to dig their way out of what could be still a calamitous disaster, but can be a new beginning if we just do what we ought to do and prove that the heart of america, without regard to race or religion or Political Party is greater than our problems. Look at w. , harold. I swear the guy is still at yale, whispering, joking while bill clinton is there. Obama enjoying it. Its a great night. And jimmy carter, my god, the guy looks like its 1979 right there. He is a wonder. He, in so many ways carter represents here is a guy, after his presidency, so many of his accomplishments and achievements, some would argue, eclipse what he did as president. Some would argue. And president george w. Bush, thats why we love him, watching him there in the light moment. And president obama, much of his campaign was running against george w. Bush and the two have such a great relationship now. This was about something so much bigger and missing right now that they were stepping in to help fill in. Msnbc political analyst and professor at the Michigan School of public policy, former congressman, harold ford jr. Author of the book, a world in disarray richard haas and morning joe economic analyst steve ratner. Also with us, Washington Bureau chief of the associated press, julie pace. So good to have you all on board. The white house is refusing to acknowledge a mistake by white house chief of staff john kelly, who attempted to discredit congresswoman Frederica Wilsons account of a phone call between President Trump and the widow of a soldier killed in action. The White House Position culminated on this exchange on friday. Have you seen the speech . I have. And then you know that most of it was her effusively praising these fbi agents and when she was talking about what she did in congress, she was not talking about getting the security of 20 million. She was talking about naming the building of the fbi agency. She then went on to effusively praise and that was the bulk of the speech. She also mentioned that and had quite a few comments that day that werent part of that speech and werent part of that video that were also witnessed by many people that were there. What general kelly referenced yesterday. Tell us specifically because exactly what he said. There was a lot of grandstanding. He was stunned she had taken that opportunity to make it about herself. Can he come out to talk about this at some point . I think he addressed that thoroughly yesterday. He was wrong yesterday. If you want to go after general kelly, thats up to you f you want to get into debate with a fourstar marine general, i think thats something highly inappropriate. Later, Huckabee Sarah Huckabee sanders issued a statement trying to clarify her marks. Of course, everybody can be questioned but after witnessing general kellys heartfelt recount, we should all agree that impugning his credibility on how to best honor Fallen Heroes is not appropriate. We can take it to basics. What the president did, we can impugn him. Its a terrible act. Its sick. Go ahead. Lets go ahead and play here is general david petraeus. He found himself criticized, remember, in uniform when there were people that had general betray us, when he was trying to push the surge . Lot of prominent democrats. Despite that, this is what he said. I think were all fair game. We, in uniform, protect the rights of others to criticize us. I love that, steve ratner. Were in uniform to protect the rights of others to criticize us. There is a theme, though, here. A sort of autocrat in waiting theme at the white house where you have a lot of little autocrats running around there, thinking that donald trump is somehow unchained from checks and balances of James Madison and the constitution, and hamilton. We remember back to when Steven Miller said the President Shall not be questioned. One of the most tyrranical things i ever heard uttered from the white house. She pulled it back but what is disturbing is this is their instinct. How dare you question us. Their goto. Theres no question no pun intended, theres no question that they dont believe their actions should be questioned. And they have this sort of autocratic pushback blanket at all costs kind of mentality. I think it is fair game to question what general kelly did or didnt say. That said, i would say as apparent as someone who cant even begin to imagine what its like to have that casualty of r office to have general kelly show up on your doorstep. Weve taken the death of an american soldier. Its become politicized. And the pain of his family. Its become politicized and perhaps the bulk of the blame lies on Donald Trumps doorstep. I think a lot of other people dont have completely clean hands here. Its really sad, what weve come to as a country, that this has become the issue of the day, the death of this poor kid and how it was handled thereafter. Actually, who else who else except for the president of the United States really has any responsibility for what went wrong . Well, there hasnt been i cant think of one. There hasnt been a grownup. The congress kls womwoman wa friend of the family. She wasnt going around, grandstanding. The president has said from the beginning you have to be careful when youre listening in on conversations from the president and then you run out and talk about it in the press. So some people could look to her. Some people could look to general kelly who, in all of his eloquent remarks i will say again i thank god general kelly is there but even he didnt make it about the soldier who has fallen. He didnt talk about the soldier. The family. He talked about politics, the congresswoman. Enraged him so much, he had to go up to arlington. Again, no talk about this young man, this American Hero who fell. He had an opportunity as well to be the grownup. And he still needs to come out and remind everybody its about this young man who has fallen and then move on. Nobody is doing that. There is no grown up in the house. And, yes, this all began with donald trump. All began with donald trump. And thats unfortunate. But julie pace, this is a great example of well, youve got to question i guess as a reporter, this is something youre balancing all the time. Is this a self inflicted wound or is this this weeks version of the nfl and kneeling two weeks ago. Is donald trump actually just trying to distract us from the Russian Investigation . Or from what really happened in niger . Trying to distract us from what happened in niger . Is he trying to distract us from the fact that they havent passed a single piece of legislation . Is he trying to distract us from the fact that he has the lowest Approval Ratings of all time for any firstyear president . How do you take these controversies du jour, of the week, that he keeps spitting out . He throws out an insult, he knows its going to cause is he trying to distract us from something bigger or does he just not have a heart. Completely lost it . That is the central question of this presidency. Its a question we grapple with every day, every week. Youre right. There tends to always be some kind of controversy that bubbles up. It generalliy comes from the president himself. It generally gets pushed forward from the president himself. I do think theres an element of the president liking the art of distraction. He does like to have a side show going on. A lot of his advisers dont like that but understand that actually is, in some ways, strategic on his part. He does like the shiny objects. In this case, with this situation, with these four soldiers and everything that came from this controversy over the call to the family, i dont think that this is the same as the nfl. That was a situation that the president , once he latched on to that issue, felt it was a winning issue for him. In this case its more of an example of the president being really unwilling to admit a mistake, admit that he probably shouldnt have gone after former president s in the way that they handled calls to families of Fallen Soldiers. This was more the doubling down aspect of the trump presidency. What you saw this was what was so striking about last week. What you saw was general kelly helping trump along in that effort. Thats what made this one so unique to me. Richard . You asked the important question about whether its the tactic of distraction. I think it raises the question for us, whether were allowing ourselves to be distracted. Theres really big policy questions here. Why do we have somewhere between 750 and 1,000 americans in niger . This is not unique. Openended effort against terrorism. This is the question of congr s congressional authorization and oversight. Several leading people in the senate were unaware of what were doing. As a country we have to ask ourselves, are we signed up for an openended war of this sort, literally, that is being waged across several continents . This morning we hear of the cias expanded role in afghanistan, mark. And also i remember, mika, your father years and years ago my god, maybe eight years ago, saying its very important for us to separate al qaeda and the taliban. Al qaeda wants to knock down buildings in new york and washington. The taliban wants to run its country by eighth century rules. We are now launching cia to expand its covert role in afghanistan. Its the lead story in the New York Times. This president , who is talking about retreating militarily, actual ly sending more troops ad more operations out. And were not talking about it because hes sending out stupid tweets that we would punish our children for sending out. Public policy, the one that richard raised, the fact that theres ignorance on the leading members of congress, where americans are stationed around the world, what the migs are. The New York Times story, the niger mission, whatever the facts are. Its essential that both parties avoid the distractions and get their arms around this. President trump talked about coming home to america but he also talked about being tough and has around him an impressive amount of military people. That is a recipe for if theres a failure of congressional oversight, the executive branch doing whatever it wants in the most profound responsibility its got to defend america. With a republican house, certainly, that will not cross this president , that fear this president , that have basically given up their constitutional mandate to be a check on this president. Harold, the biggest question of all on Foreign Policy, north korea. We should be talking about north korea. Absent this weekend. We should be talking about north korea every day. There is a coming war, most likely. Richard haas, i think you would agree. It is more likely than not that there is a conflict, possibly a fullblown war, with an emerging nuclear power. The magnitude of the distraction cant be overstated. Last weekend, tillerson was on just about every sunday show, defending the fact that he had not been castrated and making clear that we would continue negotiating right up until the first bomb dropped, which was an amazing thing. One point on sanders. I want to hear richard. President trump, then candidate trump, if you recall, he trashed generals throughout the campaign. He questioned them over and over again. Matter of fact, said in several instances that he was smarter than all the generals. That he knew more about it than then. She needs to go back and understand that. Im glad chip reid questioned with the aggressiveness that he did but north korea is far more important i think. I would like to hear you respond about north korea, but who is running who is the lead player on what happens next with north korea, from our perspective . Is it the president . In all these cases, the president and his senior lieutenants. We were focused on what the two former president s said and what general kelly was saying. History would look back on what h. R. Mcmaster was saying thursday that wasnt really reported friday. That was big news. He said we are not going to accept and deter on north korea with Nuclear Weapons and missiles and other than denuclearization, which i would argue is not going to happen. Theyre not going to do that. Theyre not interested in arms control. What is the impact of that basically when he says were not going to engage in containment of this threat. We are not just not going to accept it. Does that move us a step closer to war . Absolutely. I dont think theres any way that sanctions can kick in with whatever desire to fix soon enough to get in the way of the time line of north koreas military advance. I listen to the National Security adviser and i basically said he is setting us in a direction this is out there. We often ignore whats most obvious. I actually thought what happened the other day moved us considerably closer to a war against north korea. This is what general mcmaster said on thursday. Then well get you in, steve. Were not running out of time but we are running out of time. Were running out of time. This is a problem set that we have to take on with a great sense of urgency. The president has been extremely clear on his perspective on north korea. He is not going to accept this regime threatening the United States with a Nuclear Weapon. He wont accept it. So, there are those who have said, well, you know, what about accept and deter . Accept and deter is unacceptable. So this puts us in the situation where we are in a race to resolve this, short of military action. Steve . Richard, look, i cant disagree with you, obviously, that the threat of war is real. It seems to me that war there is its just unimaginable. 250,000 americans in south korea, 20 Million People in seoul, 60 kilometers or Something Like that from the dmz. It cant possibly go well. It cant possibly end well. It has to be one of the it has to make vietnam look like a pipsqueak compared to what would happen in the Korean Peninsula if we did Something Like that. It would be horrific. Its not unimaginable. I can see it happening out of design, which was what was hinted at the other day, or by accident. Weve got b1 bombers in the area, ships in the area. North korea continues to launch missiles. Any of those scenarios could lead to action or reaction. No one can sit here around the tably a table and say that donald trump or kim jongun, given what theyve said, could step back from the situation. You have to look at the players and you have to figure out what theyre going to do. I believe if you step back and take a look from a distance at donald trump, this is a guy who has already told himself and every general around him, i will not be the person that allows north korea to develop technology, to send a Nuclear Weapon to the west coast. And i think unlike other president s, he is not limited by the fears that limited jfk or even ronald reagan. By the way, when i say fears, dont flinch. I mean, you have reason to be scared of a war that could wipe out 500,000 people. No. I just think he wants to use nukes. Thats what i feel. I totally disagree. You totally disagree with what . You heard him over the past year. Hes excited about the concept. You didnt hear me, mika. I heard you. No, you didnt. I said he is not chained by the same fears that chained jfk and reagan, the fear of Nuclear Weapons, a fear of war. And, unfortunately, i think we have to be on guard after that. Since he is so contemptuous of the constitution if a war does begin we have to be aware of what steps he takes domestically if he does start that war. I totally agree with that. Senator john mccain said it was wrong that, to get out of serving in vietnam, quote, the highest income level found a doctor that would say they had a bone spur. Must have