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>> well, look, i think there are examples of back channels that have happened between the state department and administrations and foreign governments. what's different about this is, of course, president trump wasn't in office yet. but this was a back channel which was attempted to be out of the view of national security intelligence and diplomatic experts. you know, it's one thing to have some back channel, but to try to create it secret from your own government and from the intelligence agencies and diplomatic agencies of the united states is very unusual. and again, when you look at all th...

Counsel might have been the worst thing to happen to them for them developing a spine and saying this is enough. >> why is that? >> because it now allows them to abdicate their responsibility for holding the president accountable because director mueller is so expected. it's an unintentional blowback. however, there are two things. one, republicans are kind of defending at least on the far right what happened with kushner in this. they're saying, well, henry kissinger had a back channel as well, but henry kissinger and his back channels, we're talking about cafes and coffee shops, not the russ...

To mention war just not on the peninsula, but in the region. i think to some degree the president's a little disconnected from his national security team which thas been running a deliberate process on. this i'm guessing, but i think the president thinks by uping the rhetoric, he actually might try to bring china and pyongyang more to the table. >> when the secretary of state opens the possibility of the u.s. establishing a direct dialogue with north korea, the u.s. has not done that, there's been back channels, but the u.s. has not directly done that for quite a while, what do you think? >> i...

China to help out, china clearly has influence over north korea, but there are still some limits, would you go as far as recommending that the u.s. once again establish some sort of direct dialogue with north korean officials and if it's not public, maybe through some diplomatic back channels? >> i would support that because when you stop talking, when have you no diplomacy, then realistically your only choice is either going to be economic sanctions which you're already doing or the use of force. and unlike syria, north korea has nuclear weapons and they have artillery and missiles that are d...

If he didn't meet with president putin, that he can convey his sentiments and thoughts of the united states to the foreign minister. >> we're not there yet. i think to prejudge the outcome -- >> in other words, tillerson to see putin on this, even though -- >> no, what i would say -- i would say there's a bit of irony that for all these talks that have been perpetuated ability back channels and direct links, now it's they won't meet with you and does that under mind the relationship -- no, i understand that. i think it' interesting that we went from all of these direct links to russia to now, ...