About poll numbers, the New York Times, and amazon. Kim jongun now constructed a miniature Nuclear Warhead small enough to fit inside one of its longrange missiles. He is perfecting the ability to develop a Nuclear Device to the homeland. There is no doubt this is happening earlier than people had expected. They will be met with fire and fury. Like the world has never seen. Sounds more like a north korean leader, unfortunately, than an american leader. This is just impulsive. Ill thought out. All its good doing is bring us closer to some kind of serious confrontation. It used to be we looked at the North Koreans and said, those are the nuts with nukes. And thats why its troubling. Now it looks a little bit like we have our own nut with nukes and thats much more disturbing for the rest of the world. Well, he did it. He did what no other president of the United States before him has done and it could not be more serious. Life and death serious. President of the United States today threatened nuclear war. North korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen. He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as i said, they will be met with fire, fury and frankly, power. The likes of which this world has never seen before. The president s comments came after the Washington Post reported this afternoon, north korea successfully produced a miniaturized Nuclear Warhead that can fit inside its missiles. That was a Technological Development that analyst believe was years away. The news comes less than two weeks after north korea tested a Ballistic Missile believed to be capable of reaching the mainland of the United States. But for two hours after that disturbing and Important News broke today, the president of the United States had absolutely nothing to say about it. Instead, he was busy tweeting lies about the Washington Post, the New York Times, and his administrations lack of of accomplishments. First he tweeted, emails show that amazon Washington Post and failing New York Times were reluctant to cover the Clinton Lynch secret meeting in plane. That tweet was a complete lie from start to finish. Washington post and New York Times eagerly covered that story as we all recall during the president recall campaign after it was revealed by a local tv station in arizona. Ten minutes after the first tweet the president then tweeted, after 200 days, rarely has any administration achieved what we have achieved. Not even close. Dont believe the fake news suppress polls. Donald trump is of course the first president in memory to fail to pass the first major piece of legislation that he tried to pass in his case repeal of the Affordable Care act. None of the rest of the trump legislative agenda has even made it to a vote in a committee in either the house or the senate. And his response to that uniquely bad news for his uniquely incompetent and ineffective administration is to simply lie and say that his administration has achieved more than most. A north korean regime style lie. Thats Donald Trumps choice. To in terms of describing accomplishments of his administration. So the Trump Administration enters its first deadly serious Dangerous International crisis, this time with an unpredictable liar in north korea and for the first time in american history, the United States has an unpredictable liar who is in control of the Nuclear Codes that could instantly create fire and fury like the world has never seen. There is no indication that the white house or president had any intention at all of making any comment about north korea today. What the president did say was in response to a shouted question bay reporter and thats when the president of the United States decided to threaten fire and fury like the world has never seen. In north korea. North korea then responded as of course it would. Responses by announcing on its state media that it is quote carefully examining a plan to strike the u. S. Pacific territory of guam with missiles creating what north korea called quote an enveloping fire around guam. North korea was clearly trying to mirror the language of the president of the United States. In another statement, threatening, it will take charge mercifully. This is the first time that the dangerous apocalyptic statements of the regime has been met with dangerous apocalyptic statements by the president of the United States. John mccain had this response to President Trumps comments. I take exception to the president s comments because youve got to be sure that you can do what you say youre going to do. All its going to do is bring us closer to some kind of serious confrontation. Just 35 of americans are confident in Donald Trumps ability to handle a nuclear program. 61 of americans are uneasy about his ability to handle the north korea crisis. North korea has been a tension point for decades. But the American Public always knew that their president was wasnt going to be the one who did something stupid to make the situation much, much worse. 18 years ago, tim russert asked donald trump about exactly this situation after donald trump advocated a preemptive first strike against north korea. The former general in the air force, the former secretary of defense, said you could not launch a preemptive strike against north korea because the nuclear fall out could be devastating to the asian peninsula. But the military told you, mr. Trump, you cant do this. Youre give meg two names. Youre give meg two names. I dont know. You want to do it every five years when they point new york city or washington . Is what when you want to do it . You better do it now. If they think you are serious, i deal with lots of people. If they think you are serious, they will negotiate and it will never come to that. Security studies at Wilson Center served on National Security staff in Clinton Administration and expert on expert proliferation and author of the new book preventing north koreas break out. Robert litwak, it seems when you look at donald trump 18 years ago and donald trump today, there has been no maturing at all. No increased sophistication apparently in his view of the situation with north korea. Tuckman famously wrote the guns of august which talked about the depiction of war in 1814. The hyperbolic rhetoric today combined with the risk of miscalculation and inadvertent escalation are extremely worrisome. The president alluded to the military option. It is the worst of a bad set of options. South korean capital, seoul, as close to the Demilitarized Zone as korea is to washington and they have the equivalent of Nuclear Weapon in the form of forwardbased artillery pointed at seoul. Even a socalled limited strike on north Koreas Nuclear infrastructure would run the catastrophic risk of escalation. The figures that you cited as well as those that date from the period when i was in the Clinton Administration nsc that a war on the Korean Peninsula that could escalate from limited strikes would entail 1 million casualties and economic costs. Can you use an inflator factor for two decades that passed since then. Robert, people like donald trump, donald trump of 18 years ago clearly believe that we can just bomb the north Korean Nuclear capability out of existence without any real risk to the United States or possibly any anyone else. Thats clearly the person tim russert was confronting 18 years ago. Had no information technically how would he do this. For our audience out there, what are our capacities right now tonight to actually take out the north Korean Nuclear capacity . They are substantial but when youre working on the National SecurityCouncil Staff and the pros and cons memo, if one of your cons is these limited strikes could escalate into a war on the Korean Peninsula, thats a nontrivial con. We basically have three options to deal with the north korean challenge. Bomb, negotiate, or acquiesce. My concern is that in the absence of pivot to serious negotiations we have the option to acquiesce to this buildup that they are in the process of acquiring these new capabilities or undertaking a bad military option. I argued in my new pick to pivot serious diplomacy backed by the course of power of economic sanctions to bring about a freeze, to constrain north Koreas Nuclear capabilities. Their current arsenal of 20 is bet are than one 20 years from now. Youve been studying donald trump for years. Wrote a book about him. Two books at this point. Translate for us what you think we heard today and how is it different if at all from what we heard from donald trump 18 years ago when tim russert asked him about it . It is not different from what he said 18 years ago and one of the things we know about donald is he doesnt learn. He doesnt study. During the campaign, trump said we will use Nuclear Weapons. Of course we will use Nuclear Weapons. He also posed as a question, we have all these Nuclear Weapons, why dont you use them . Which tells you he understands nothing about the doctrine of the Nuclear Weapons, that the whole point is to not use them. What he has done here today is reduced his options. He has painted himself closer into being in a corner and it fits perfectly with what weve seen him do. And keep in mind that white house staff has said, hey, why is the news media surprised by what we are doing . We are just fulfilling our promises and we will fulfill every Single Campaign promise. Well, one of those promises repeatedly made was donald trump intends to use Nuclear Weapons. He is just looking for the opportunity. Lets listen to what National Security adviser general mcmaster said on msnbc on august 2nd about this. What youre asking is, are we preparing plans for a preventive war, right . A war that would prevent north korea from threatening the United States with a Nuclear Weapon. And the president s been very clear about it. He said hes not going to tolerate it. North korea threatening the United States. Look at the regime, if they threaten the United States. It is intolerable from the president s perspective. So of course we have to provide all options to do that. That includes military option. Robert litwak, your reaction to that . I think it calls for distinction between the preemptive use of force and preventive use of force. We saw in 2003 launching of preventive war against saddam hussein. North korea, like wise, would not be an imminent threat to the United States. The threat is linked to the character of the regime and rather than deter and contain it, advocates of preventive military action would argue that mere acquisition of these capabilities is unacceptable and these capabilities in the hands of the North Koreans. My concern is by the end of the Trump Administration, the first Trump Administration, that the president has a choice. Either taking preventive action or essentially acquiescing to their buildup and adapting a policy, adopting a policy, of containment and deterrence. Donald trump said famously during the campaign that he thought he was smarter than the generals, certainly about military action in afghanistan and iraq. Tonight we have to wonder what is his capacity to follow advice in a situation like this and is it possible that as we have seen in other situations this year, where he didnt like the advice, he just went public with the decision through twitter or some other way that defied the vice he was getting. What do you imagine the trump posture, president s posture in the white house, is tonight in terms of taking the advice that professionals around him have . Well, professional military officer looks at options and their job is to give you more options. Donald says the best advice comes from advisors inside his head. I would argue that is inherently delusional. But donalds need to feel he is powerful. His narcissism and bullying put him in a position where he wants to do something to really make him stand out. One of the things i think we should think about is how if we were to attack north korea, we could become the pariah state of the world. This could be an enormous boom to beijing and moscow and their influence in the world and threat us to. I hope our senior military officers are reading up carefully on refusal of a lawful order. Something that the late senator from hawaii was a decorated world war ii veteran, lectured oliver north about, that you dont follow unlawful orders. And if donald trump decides he wants to use Nuclear Weapons in north korea one hopes that officers will refuse that order as unlawful. Were going to have to take a break here. Robert litwak, david cay johnston. Thank you. The president apparently sent messages, according to his own lawyer, the president sent indirect messages to special prosecutor Robert Mueller. And thousands of pages of documents now are being released to investigators from the Trump Campaign from donald trump jr. And from paul manafort. Each year sarah climbs 58,007 steps. Thats the height of mount everest. Because each day she chooses to take the stairs. At work, at home. Even on the escalator. That can be hard on her lower body, so now she does it with dr. Scholls orthotics. Clinically proven to relieve and prevent foot, knee or lower back pain, by reducing the shock and stress that travel up her body with every step she takes. So keep on climbing, sarah. Youre killing it. Dr. Scholls. Born to move. Rethink your allergy pills. Flonase sensimist allergy relief helps block 6 key inflammatory substances with a gentle mist. Most allergy pills only block one. And 6 is greater than one. Flonase sensimist. Track your pack. Set a curfew, or two. Make dinnertime device free. [ music stops ] [ music plays again ] a smarter way to wifi is awesome. Introducing xfinity xfi. Amazing speed, coverage and control. Change the way you wifi. Xfinity. The future of awesome. Breaking news tonight. Bloomberg is reporting that the Trump Campaign is starting to comply with documents requests from the senate judiciary. The Trump Campaign turned over about 20,000 pages of documents on august 2. Manafort turned over pages on august 2nd. Trump junior gave about 250 pages on august 4th. Senate judiciary asked for any documents containing information involving Hillary Clinton from russian government or russianaffiliated sources including the june 2016 meeting between donald trump junior, paul manafort, Jared Kushner and visitors to trump tower. Usa today is reporting tonight that President Trump had indirect contact with special prosecutor Robert Mueller. The president s chief criminal defense lawyer. John dowd said today the president appreciates what bob mueller is doing. He asked me to share that with him and thats what ive done. John dowd said that teams with the Prosecutors Office have been proper. Dowd said he passed along the president s expressions of appreciation and greetings. Those were his words. Appreciation and greetings. Passed those along to Robert Mueller. The quote he gave is the president has sent messages back and forth, dowd said, declining to elaborate fuller. It is not clear what back and forth means. The president can only send messages in one direction. So if there has been a back and forth, does that mean that special prosecutor Robert Mueller communicated with the president indirectly through attorney dowd . We dont know. John dowd told usa today quote we get along well with bob mueller. Our communications have been constructive, the attorney says, but it is important that our Communications Remain confidential. It is important there not be any break down in that trust. Two different bipartisan b