Trump at Mar-a-Lago as North Korea Tensions Build; VP Pence Heading to Seoul Amid Tensions with North Korea
SCIUTTO: Welcome back. This week on the program, a guest told Anderson that he thought the president was facing more global flashpoints than any president has since the Second World War. The former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told me the U.S. hasn't faced such a diverse array of threats in decades. Here to talk about it, our military, foreign policy and political panel: retired Army Lieutenant General Mark Hertling, Mike Chinoy, Kimberly Dozier, and Ryan Lizza. General, if I could begin with you, you've commanded troops in combat, in Iraq. There is always tension between the U.S. and North Korea. There's always the exchange of hyperbolic rhetoric, particularly from North Korea. Right now, though, are you concerned that this has reached a particularly tense level? Is there something different about it right now that concerns you?</s>LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: There is, Jim. And I have commanded in Iraq and in Germany and also in Korea, and I have never seen the tension in Korea the way it is right now. And it has to do twofold primarily because of Kim Jong-un, who is actually more provocative than I think many of the watchers of Korea and that part of the world have seen him in a long time. He is close to achieving his goals, and he's being pushed on several sides. North Korea is a racist society. They see themselves as pure and they see South Korea and China as being impure and influenced by the United States. So, it's not that they're irrational actors, is just that they have a different rational than we do, and you have to understand that before you push the leader and the North Koreans to the brink, because they will go there if that's the only choice they see they have.</s>SCIUTTO: Mike Chinoy, I want to draw on your experience. You've been to North Korea a number of times. You met with North Korean officials. There's trope out there that General Hertling referred to you. They often say, well, North Korea is an irrational actor. The leader is crazy. But in reality, you talk to North Korean experts that say, well, as brutal as it is, the strategy is rational if survival is the only goal really. Do you agree with that?</s>MIKE CHINOY, SENIOR FELLOW, USC U.S.-CHINA INSTITUTE: I think you put your finger on it. There is this kind of conventional stereotype of North Korea as crazy and irrational. I think, in fact, Nikki Haley, the ambassador to the U.N., described Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader that way. But in fact, the North Koreans I think have a very cold blooded and ruthless, but very rational perspective. The name of the game for North Korea is regime survival. The North Koreans look around the world in the last dozen or 15 years. They look at the example of Iraq where Saddam Hussein was toppled and eventually executed after the U.S. invasion. And he didn't have nukes. They look at Libya's Moammar Gadhafi who voluntarily gave up his nukes and was overthrown. They look at Syria being a U.S. target last week. None of these countries have nuclear weapons. And the North Korean view is we are a small country, our goal is to keep our system and our regime and our dynasty in power and having a nuclear capability does that. I don't see any circumstances under which they'll give that up.</s>SCIUTTO: Mark Hertling, again, drawing on your experience in Korea, you have Kim Jong-un. He's capable as his father and grandfather before him of hyperbole and very scary threats. Very scary threats. I'm not comparing him to President Trump, but President Trump has tweeted and said things about U.S. action, he said if China doesn't take care of it, we'll take care of it ourselves. When you have that combination, does North Korea read him with trepidation? Does that increase the chances, are you concerned, of conflict, or if not conflict, misunderstanding that could lead to conflict?</s>HERTLING: Well, I think it gets to what we're just talking about. He's there to make sure his regime continues to exist. And anyone that threatens him overtly will cause him to be -- will dig in more. So, yes, I'm concerned about this, and the bluntness and brashness of Mr. Trump, without a strategy, and the things that he has said about what he's going to do without options. So, Jim, I'll give you an example. If North Koreans, if the leader does actually execute a test of a nuclear weapon tonight or tomorrow, and then fires multiple missiles, what are we going to do? That's the question. There is not an option. You can't just conduct a strike like we did in Syria or drop a bomb like Mick Nicholson did in Afghanistan and solve the problem, because there are second and third order effects of striking North Korea. And you have Seoul right under their radar. They can strike Seoul and kill tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people with artillery from riveted positions that are very difficult to bomb.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes, and a lot of Americans in Seoul, including soldiers, as well. Kimberly Dozier, you've been speaking to military officials about U.S. military options here. Is one of those options a preemptive strike?</s>KIMBERLY DOZIER, DAILY BEAST CONTRIBUTOR: That is just one of a number of options that they keep on a shelf to be ready at any time if the commander in chief asks them, tell me all the things you can do.</s>SCIUTTO: But is it a realistic option? Recommended?</s>DOZIER: No, it's not the one they want to use, and when a report came out this week on another network that it was a possibility, I heard from lots of different administration officials trying to tamp it down, because they don't want it to trigger or provoke North Korea. Their preferred option is to ratchet everything back and get in a position where China can use its influence on North Korea, and solve this through a mixture of threatened economic sanctions, and the carrot of loosening some of those sanctions and the food aid that North Korea needs.</s>SCIUTTO: So, what was just described to me, Ryan, sounds a lot like the Obama administration policy towards North Korea and the George W. Bush administration, where is this dramatic change of President Trump?</s>RYAN LIZZA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You know, two things. First, what would we be pre-empting? This would be the sixth nuclear test. So, there's nothing to preempt. The time to pre-empt a nuclear power is before the first test if I'm not mistaken. Yes, he's back in the same place on a lot of these issues of his predecessors were. He's back on the same place on Syria, right? He's back with -- Assad has to go and we'll use a deterrent capability to stop him from using chemical weapons, but we don't want to intervene any further than that. On North Korea, he's left with the same options. I mean, I think it was very telling this week when he said he talked to the president of China, who explained to him --</s>SCIUTTO: How complicated a problem it was.</s>LIZZA: That actually Donald Trump for the last two years was wrong in saying that, oh, the Chinese could solve this problem in a second. The Chinese president said, well, actually, it's not true, it's a little complicated, here's the leverage we have, here's what we don't.</s>SCIUTTO: I did wonder who briefed him for that meeting. That's something North Korean experts would know.</s>LIZZA: Yes, that's something we would expect them to know. I think, you know, we're watching a president in real time grapple with the world as it is, rather than the way he thought it was on the campaign trail.</s>SCIUTTO: Mike Chinoy, you've been going to North Korea a long time. And the concern had always been, what if we had a nuclear North Korea? That was the nightmare scenario. Here we are, a nuclear North Korea, in effect. Is that the new reality? Is there a sort of grudging acceptance of that fact now?</s>CHINOY: Well, officially, the U.S. and many other countries say they won't accept North Korea as a nuclear state. But the reality is, North Korea is a nuclear state and I think the odds of the North giving up their nuclear capability are very, very minimal. Which raises an interesting question, if you get back to diplomacy, what would be the goal? And there are people who believe it is not impossible, if the U.S. and North Korea started talking, to try to achieve a deal which the North would freeze its current capabilities in return for American economic and security concessions. But we're nowhere close to talking. And to me, what is most dangerous now is you have this set of mixed messages from Washington, threats on the one hand, but not backed up by enough force to really do anything. The North Koreans, I don't take the threat seriously, in a sense. We haven't seen any mobilization of the North Korean military in the last few days. But the North I think could be spooked by the threats from Trump and may lash out. So, that's worrying.</s>SCIUTTO: Thank you very much. We're going to have to leave it there, unfortunately, General. We are going to have a chance to talk about it later in the program. Coming up, critics say when the going gets tough, the president goes golfing. Do they have a point? We're keeping them honest, next.