The president promises a book of his own, a real one, he says, as the real author of fear, bob woodward sticks my his reporting. His interview with nbc news about who, specifically, is lying about the denials and how close the president is and has been to waging war. Speaking of war, north korea is getting ready for one with our exclusive new reporting on how kim jongun is making nukes even after he said he would tone it down. Spoiler, its not happening. Plus, are you ready for football . Or maybe a culture war or both. The president is. Tweeting today about the start of the nfl season hoping it gives his party a political boost. Will it . We have more tossup races. Working at the vikings tailgate. Well take you there. We are set up and ready to go this monday morning. Somebody not at the tailgate, jeff bennet. No Public Events for the president today, at least not yet. We dont need to see him to know what he is thinking, that is clear. Reporter twitter is giving us a peek at whats on the president s mind. Hes been out of public view since friday night. His uncharacteristic silence saturday and sunday seemed to suggest he was taking the advice of staffers telling him to let it go, move beyond woodward and the oped. It elevated the claims in both. Today, he was back at it, tweeting about the economy, about bob woodward, calling him a liar, his book a joke. As i was walking out here to talk to you, you see this tweet, the economy is so good, the president says the economy is soooo good. Reporter there you go. Soooo good, the best in history, remember, its the economy, stupid. Today, the president referred to woodward, as here is what he had to say in his own defense to savannah this morning on the today show. They are not telling the truth. Thats lying. Look, whats going on here, and my old boss at the Washington Post, ben bradley, the great editor used to say the truth emerges. Sometimes it takes time. These people, these are political statements to protect their jobs, totally understandable. This is as carefully done as you can do an excavation of the reality of what goes on. Reporter look, if you move beyond the debate over woodwards sources, the notion of who wrote the oped, what you are left with is the book and the anonymous oped echo the same themes. The president is unfit for the job. The west wing has dysfunction and the soft coup taking place with senior aides so unnerved by the president s behavior, they are trying to protect the country as the most dangerous impulses. Certainly damaging and damming stuff. Thank you. Let me bring in chris whipple, msnbc contribute or. Ned price, security analyst who served on president obamas security council, white house reporter, shanna, and senior washington correspondent for politico, anna palmer. Chris, let me start with you. Lets talk about what you heard from bob woodward. Here is the thing. Donald trump is watching the today show. We know because he is literally and specifically tweeting about pieces from that interview with bob woodward. You saw that clip. Savannah asked, john kelly denied the things you reported. Jim mattis denied the things you reported and bob woodward said those denials simply arent true. What do you make of this . Its no surprise Trump Officials are falling all over themselves denying it. Remember, mark felt denied he was deep throat until 30 years later when he admitted it. The fact is woodward has a long track record of 19 books and being an incredible reporter. There was a flap about a death bed confession by a cia director. Other than that, he has a track record of credibility. I think the problem here, for the Trump White House is, this is now the narrative. Along with anonymous, the narrative of the white house is dangerous dysfunction and utter incompetence. Instead of running around with their hair on fire, tweeting against woodward, what they should be doing is trying to construct another narrative, get a story out there and prove it is not true. Let me go to shannon. We were talking about some of our reporting as it relates to this strategy inside the white house. As jeff bennet said, our team has been told, they are telling the president to simmer down. The more you talk about this, the more it breeds life into this thing. Here is the president this morning, torching it all against woodward. Thats pr 101, corporate or celebri celebrity pr, dont give fuel to the fire. Dont talk about the alleged accusations against you. Dont talk about the person. What does this do . It raises the profile of the book and sells more books. The president s tweets raise more attention to the books whether its omarosa or woodward. The president , especially so at this point is so confident in his instincts when it comes to his political instincts, business instincts, he is not listening to anybody around him. He, as he has been and now increasingly so feels he is going to follow his gut on every issue. Theres a lot happening here. Not just the book or the anonymous oped. There is a list of stresses on President Trump. A lot of things on his plate besides running the country, right . Everything from midterm elections to the russia investigations, to the book and oped. Frankly, a thinly staffed white house. President obama coming out and taking it to him eight weeks before the midterms. How does this white house, in your study of white houses past, how do they manage the stres s stressors and is this white house doing that . The Clinton White house was under siege under investigation and they had a way of handling it where the chief of staff kept the president , bill clinton, focused and john podesta dealt with the lawyers and the lewinsky scandal. This white house has, the problem is, discipline and process are for donald trump. Until he gets that, this is going to continue to be a mess. Its going to be continuing chaos. You know, you dont get anywhere by running around, threatening bogus National Security investigations or threatening to strap everyone up to a lie detector test. Back in the 80s, Ronald Reagan had a security leak of information and signed an executive order to have everyone take polygraphs. Jim baker, the chief of staff turned his car around, barged in and had reagan rip up the order. Thats what a good chief of staff can do. When you talk about National Security, bob woodward talked about it to. Theres things in there that reflect what woodward sees as potential problems. Watch. Some of the things trump did and does jeopardize the National Security. This country does some things in the intelligence world which are so important to protect the country. They are astonishing. They are secret. They are called special Access Programs and he jeopardizes them. He jeopardizes them and does it consistently. Some of this, we have seen come out over time. You may remember the oval Office Incident with the russians when he invited them in. As we understand it, he revealed special access information they have provided. What concerns a lot of us, we see, we know theres an iceberg. We see a tip of the iceberg. We see a tent. We see a fraction of what it is that concerns the writer of the anonymous oped, bob woodward. We dont see the extent of it. The more we hear and see of this white house, it gives us pause and concern. When you talk about these crises, you have to distinguish what they are, they are manmade crises. They are political crises. This white house has yet to face a real, true, National Security, external challenge. The day that comes, thats when a lot of us are going to be concerned. This is what they say, you are so wrapped up in this. Look at the economy and the things people care about. Economic numbers are good. Isnt there a universe the white house staffers working for the white house have a point or no . You have to look at what is because of the president and what is happening in spite of the president. So, i think theres an argument to be made, if this white house truly were a finely tuned machine as President Trump said, we could be seeing more across the economic fronlt, the National Security front, the domestic agenda. Because this white house is embroiled in turbulence, this is what we see. X is happening over at this side of pennsylvania avenue. What is going to happen on the other side of pennsylvania avenue with other republicans. Ben sasse has been out a ton. He was out with chuck on meet the press. Here is what he said. I dont have any desire to beat the president up, but its clear that this white house is a reality show soap opera presidency. The drama of omarosa, the drama of cohen, manafort and the woodward quotes and the opeds. What you would like is the president not to worry about the short term of staffing, but the long term vision casting. Pull us together as a people. Senator ben sasse considers leaving the gop every morning, but hes dragged by those who say why dont you . Hes been saying this for two years. Yes, its making a lot of news and sexy and we like to cover it because republicans thinking of leaving the republican party. This is something that you hear from him and others in the party that are frustrated with the side show happening in the white house. What are they doing . The trump folks, who are conservative, who go, okay, what are you going to do . Theres a lot of frustration and you see the friction that happens over and over again. He gave a good speech a week ago. You see people like him who could fill the void that is there now. Where are you going to go . They are arent democrats. To get a third party on the ballot is impossible for them, individually. Its like rocking our place. More conversation to come, for sure. Ned, chris, thank you for being on. Im going to ask anna and shannon to stick around. We are going to talk about the clashing in north korea. Three months after the singapore summit, the president says things have never been better. Woodward says the president is detached from reality. Now, they outline how they are working hard to hide the Nuclear Program. Do not miss those details after the breachblgt. I cant believe it. That everything sticks to stefon diggss hands . No, i cant believe how easy it was to save hundreds of dollars on my Car Insurance with geico. Cool, huh . Yeah. He plays football, huh . Yeah. Believe it. Geico could save you fifteen percent or more on Car Insurance. And back pain made it hard to sleep and get up on time. Then i found aleve pm. The only one to combine a safe sleep aid, plus the 12 hour pain relieving strength of aleve. Im back. Aleve pm for a better am. When i went on to ancestry, i just put in the name yes, we are twins. Of my parents and my grandparents. I was getting all these leaves and i was going back generation after generation. You start to see documents and you see signatures of people that youve never met. I mean, you dont know these people, but you feel like you do. You get connected to them. I wish that i could get into a time machine and go back 100 years, 200 years and just meet these people. Being on ancestry just made me feel like i belonged somewhere. Discover your story. Start searching for free now at ancestry. Com. Lets talk about the potential for war, perhaps. Bob woodward is talking about that. He spoke to savannah on today where President Trump questioned the need for u. S. Troops in south korea. Something we reported on last february. Watch. I have never seen an instance when the president is so detached from the reality of whats going on. In one meeting, a year after trump was in office, the secretary of defense has to tell him because the president is complaining about all this money we are spending on u. S. Forces abroad. James mattis says to him, we are doing this to prevent world war iii. That brings us to our new nbc exclusive about the korean peninsula. Nearly three months after you watched this broadcast while we were in singapore for a summit. President trump declaring there is no longer a nuclear threat, they are showing the opposite. Pyongyang is still making Nuclear Weapons and trying harder than before to hide them. At the same time, the Trump Administration is taking a harder line, even though President Trump praiseed north korea over the weekend. National security administrator is here to talk about it. Courtney, a lot of contradictions here. Take us through it. What we are learning is that north korea is continuing to try to conceal the Nuclear Program. We reported on that earlier in the summer when we found out they were not only trying to conceal what they were doing, but continuing pace to work on their Nuclear Program with the production of uranium. In this case, what we found out from officials is that they are working to conceal at least one of their Nuclear Warhead storage facilities. What is important about this, as you mentioned, this is three months after the summit where President Trump and kim jongun met and agreed to denuclearize the korean peninsula. We have not seen that. Theres another piece of intelligence, they are continuing on pace with what the assessment was there would be five to eight new nukes in this calendar year. That is still the assessment that the North Koreans are workinging toward. I want to bring in juan. I want to get your reaction to this. Intelligence sources, as courtney explains is kim jongun is building up Nuclear Weapons. The president , 24 hours ago, praiseing him in a tweet, calling it a positive statement that they didnt show off their missiles. Fine. Is he right . Is this kim being savvy . I think its both. What you have on the u. S. Side is a policy this is one case where i think the president is learning over time and is more clear. I think what you have is his attempt to make his own personal diplomacy work and try to make the channels of statetostate, head of state Communications Lead to results while also have secretary pompeo, defense secretary mattis drive a maximum Pressure Campaign with this dual policy. We are not used to that. Usually, if we have negotiations, we try to lessen pressure. This is a different kind of model. You can see the president growing frustrated with china, as a result. Hes had a tweet about that. I think the North Koreans are savvy. They realize the president wants success. If they dont showcase their nuclear capabilities, they could perhaps continue to do things. I think this is a game of cat and mouse as to how the diplomacy plays out with the reality on the ground of a Nuclear Program that is yet undeclared, hasnt been abbated and they continue to develop it. Speaking of diplomacy, secretary mattis said we are going to let it be diplomatically led. What are they saying and the challenges here as the Trump Administration is taking a harder line and the president , himself, does not. Juan mentioned maximum Pressure Campaign. It will manifest immediately at sea. The u. S. Military has been part of this coalition working to stop the shiptoship transfer, ships that are violating the u. N. Security council by bringing goods, coal and other things into north korea. They transfer them in and bring them to the country. Theres been a coalition for several month that is is monitoring this. Officials who we spoke with said they are going to name and shame the ships that are involved in it. Japanese, australia, u. S. , new zealand, a number of countries out there and now they are looking to enhance the mission, to bring in more aircraft and ships and define the ships and show the world there is a violation of sanctions. As juan mentioned here, he is absolutely right about this strategy. Yeah. President trump is going in one direction, hes praising kim jongun on twitter and praising these efforts while his administration and leaders are working in the opposite direction. They are pushing the maximum Pressure Campaign or pushing again. When we went to the white house, they said President Trump is behind the maximum Pressure Campaign. Its difficult because theres questions about the confusion in the administration. This is one where the administration is figuring it out. Use his attempts to make nice and see if that can help and pressuring. On the naming and sanctioning, thats been done in the past. Whether or not we accelerate is will be interesting to watch. It has two effects. Can we begin interdictions. It also, what this does is put pressure on china. China doesnt want more american, japanese, south korean air resources out there. I have been an advocate for a long time, put pressure on china in the long term to make it a liability for them. If we start putting more reso e resources into it, its going to be uncomfortable for the chinese. The question, is can we do it . Will we do it . Its been a third rail. Will that change . Quickly, courtney, let me get you reaction about whether north korea is trying to have its cake and eat it too. Watch. At this parade, they said we have achieved our security. Now, lets focus on economic development. That does not sound like an agenda that says im ready to trade my nukes for economic relations and trade with the outside world. Courtney . Thats what we have been hearing out of experts for some time. After north korea tested intercontinental ballistics last year after making the progress on Nuclear Warhead, they are not negotiating on their heels. This, in fact, they might be turning toward more economic development. They feel they have achieved the state of nuclear security. They can do that. They are no longer at threat. Killer exclusive. Thank you for bringing that to us. Coming up, former secretary of state, john kerry, big news, will talk about this very thing coming up on Andrea Mitchell reports la