North Korea Launches Two Projectiles Into The Sea
SAVIDGE: And we're following "BREAKING NEWS" this morning. A show of force. That's what South Korea is calling North Korea's firing a two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea early Saturday morning.</s>PAUL: Now, the launch is North Korea's fifth in just over two weeks. And this is just hours after President Trump told reporters on the White House lawn that North Korea's Kim Jong-un was not happy with joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises in that region. These are annual exercises that happen every year.</s>SAVIDGE: Joining us now is CNN's Ivan Watson. He's live in Hong Kong with the very latest on this morning, to you, Ivan.</s>IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Martin. The missiles were launched, according to the South Korean military around 5:30 a.m. local time. Two short-range ballistic missiles. Which is pretty much the pattern that we've seen for about 2-1/2 weeks now. We can show that calendar again. The North Koreans firing missiles on July 25th, July 31st, August 2nd, August 6th, and then, this morning. Now, there's another key date there. That's not on the calendar, June 30th, that's when President Trump met face to face with Kim Jong-un on the Demilitarized Zone and became the first American president to step into North Korea. And yet, all these missiles have been fired after that. Well, the North Koreans said earlier this week that they're very unhappy about the U.S. and South Korea having annual joint military exercises. They call this a violation of the spirit of all the summits and diplomacy that President Trump has conducted with the North Korean dictator. The South Koreans are a bit uncomfortable with this because the missiles that were launched today, they traveled about 250 miles east into the ocean of North Korea. But that's definitely within range of the South Korean capital, Seoul. And they're warning that these types of missile launches could escalate military tensions. President Trump has been on record saying, the short-range ballistic missile launches do not bother him. And, in fact, hours before Saturday morning's launch, this is what he was saying about receiving a very beautiful letter, as he put it, from the North Korean dictator. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: He really wrote a beautiful three-page -- I mean, right from top to bottom, a really beautiful letter. Yes, he gave me a great letter. I would love to give you, but I don't know, I don't think it would be appropriate. But it was a very personal letter. It was a great letter he talked about what he is doing. He is not happy with the testing it's very small testing that we did, but he wasn't happy with the testing. He put that in the letter. But he also sees a great future for North Korea.</s>WATSON: Apparently, when President Trump was saying testing, he is referring to the U.S.-South Korean annual joint military exercises with -- which Pyongyang interprets as a potential threat to North Korea. So, in President Trump's own words, what bothers him, what would bother him would be nuclear weapons tests and intercontinental ballistic missile launches. Short-range ballistic missile launches don't bother him, he says. Though the British government says, they are a violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions. One final note, at that meeting at the DMZ on June 30th, President Trump said, within weeks, the U.S. and North Korea would have meetings of working groups for negotiations on denuclearization. That has not happened, only a lot of missile launches since that DMZ meeting. Martin, Christie?</s>PAUL: Ivan Watson, we appreciate it so much. Thank you, sir. CNN's Sarah Westwood, live from Bedminster, New Jersey now. Sarah, we heard him say there -- Ivan say that President Trump had said, the short- term missiles, they don't bother him. But there are 28,000 U.S. troops that are in that range of which that any of those missiles could actually hit. Have we heard any news or any indication as to whether the president has had any communication with either North or South Korea this morning?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Christi and Martin, good morning. And President Trump seems to be channeling a lot of that frustration about North Korea into South Korea. He seems to be questioning why the U.S. pays so much to base those 28,000 troops in South Korea. He has scaled back the military exercises -- those joint military exercises that we heard President Trump referred to as testing, between the U.S. military and the South Korean military this year. They've been scaled back in an apparent attempt to appease these concerns from North Korea. And just this week, he demanded that Seoul step up and pay more for the protection that they received through the U.S. military alliance with South Korea. And two administration officials tell CNN that in private conversations, President Trump has started to sour on South Korea and fumed that Seoul isn't doing more to rein in Pyongyang. That's the same kind of frustration that earlier in his presidency, he projected on to China, he thought Beijing should have done more to contain North Korea. Now, he's questioning why South Korea isn't doing more to try to contain the aggression of Pyongyang. Now, we've seen five short-range missile tests just since late July, two just in the past week. But President Trump says that his agreement -- the one he struck in Singapore with Kim Jong-un only concerned ICBMs, only concerned nuclear testing. However, the lack of further concessions from North Korea throughout this diplomacy that President Trump has pursued means that really the only thing he has had to show from these talks with North Korea was the cessation of testing. So, with short-range missiles starting to be tested again, Martin and Christi, the President Trump's few gains optically with North Korea, those are starting to be eroded.</s>SAVIDGE: That's Sarah Westwood. Thank you very much for that. We appreciate it.</s>PAUL: I hate to tell you this, but there is another child who has died in a hot car. This time in Tennessee. And it's these record temperatures this summer, worldwide. Today, 50 million of you are under heat advisories in the South. We'll tell you what happened, give you the very latest. Stay close.