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North Korea Stokes Fears with Testing; Talks with North Korea Inevitable; U.S. May Cut Trade; DACA Decision This Week. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired September 04, 2017 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

An emergency meeting at the United Nations and tough talk from the Trump White House after North Korea escalates and already dangerous showdown with a massive nuclear test.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: Kim Jong-un's action cannot be seen as defensive. His abusive use of missiles and his nuclear threats show that he is begging for war.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Plus, Congress gets back to work this week. And a down payment on a giant Harvey aid package is agenda item one.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. GREG ABBOTT (R), TEXAS: We have over 5 million people who are affected by this. It's not just the flooding in Houston. It's the hurricane swath all the way from Corpus Christi over to Beaumont. And so it's going to require even more than what was funded for Katrina, which was about $120 billion.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: And on this Labor Day, the president makes the case tax reform is a great way to help American workers, while Democrats look for ways to win back the blue collar voters who help flip some blue states to red last year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I), VERMONT: The American people are asking, how does it happen that most of the new jobs being created are low wage and part time? How does it happen since -- that since 2001 in America we have lost over 60,000 factories?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We begin the hour with emergency consultations at the United Nations Security Council and troubling new evidence North Korea is anything but swayed by global condemnation of its latest provocation. North Korea state media celebrating what it says was a successful test over the weekend of a hydrogen bomb and now threatening the United States if there is any military response.

South Korean officials report new activity at North Korean missile sites and say they believe another ballistic missile launch is in the offing. At the Security Council, the United States, Japan and South Korea are demanding new sanctions, although all three governments privately conceive past sanctions have had little to no effect on Pyongyang's behavior. The U.S. ambassador, Nikki Haley, called for swift action and warned the United States will harshly judge nations that continue to do business with North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: But our country's patience is not unlimited. We will defend our allies, and our territory. The idea that some have suggested, a so-called freeze for freeze, is insulting. When a rogue regime has a nuclear weapon and an ICBM pointed at you, you do not take steps to lower your guard. No one would do that. We certainly won't.

The time has come to exhaust all diplomatic means to end this crisis. And that means quickly enacting the strongest possible measures here in the U.N. Security Council.

KING: CNN's Will Ripley completed his latest visit to North Korea just days ago and is with us now live from Tokyo.

Will, a lot of tough talk at the Security Council, but no evidence to me anyway when you look at the words from the United States and, for example, the words from China that, yes, tough talk, but I don't see a path to a solution here.

WILL RIPLEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Absolutely right. And it's really disconcerting to view in this part of the world where people are increasingly frightened about this situation escalating to a point that there's a misstep that triggers an accidental war. A war that would be by all accounts pretty much unspeakable in terms of the consequences if there was an all-out conflict on the Korean peninsula.

Americans forget the Korean War. Millions of people died. Most of the cities on the Korean peninsula were flattened. And that was dealing with conventional weapons. Now you have a nuclear North Korea who just tested their most powerful warhead to date who officials told me in Pyongyang repeatedly just last week sanctions will do absolutely nothing to stop their weapons testing. In fact, they say it will only accelerate them and motivate them to work harder as the sanctions have over the recent years.

And North Korea's economy grew by almost 4 percent last year according to South Korean central banks estimates, in large part because of their trade relationship with China. And now you have the U.S. firing this warning shot at China saying that they'll be accused of doing business with a nuclear pariah. But China's -- the reason why China trades with North Korea is not

because of economic benefit that they gained. It's because they view North Korea as a strategic buffer between the U.S. allied forces in South Korea. And the last thing that China is going to allow is a shift in the geopolitical balance. They have intimated as such many times.

Plus, you have these new threats from North Korea. I want to read you a little bit from KCNA. Every time the U.S. goes crazy talking about sanctions and war, our will of vengeance will becomes 100,000 times stronger. This is the state news agency in North Korea. And then they talked about their recent missile launch, saying, quote, this test is a meaningful prelude to restrain Guam, the outpost of invasion in the Pacific.

So North Korea, according to the South Korean intelligence, is making preparations now to launch more missiles, potentially an ICBM, in the direction of the Pacific, possibly towards Guam. And so this continues to escalate with no solution in sight at the moment, John.

[12:05:06] KING: Will Ripley in Tokyo. Will, we'll keep in touch as this continues, as we watching to see what North Korea does next.

And as President Trump weighs his options, one thing is clear, Kim Jong-un has repeatedly ignored Trump administration warnings. And this big nuclear test comes not long after the president said the United States was, quote, locked and loaded and would respond with, quote, fire and fury if provoked. The president's national security team briefed him on the military options yesterday. Listen here. Former CIA Director Michael Hayden says it's critical the commander in chief not let this become personal or a test of manhood.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY DIRECTOR: Mr. President, this is not a manhood issue. This is a national security issue. Don't let your pride get ahead of wise policy here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: CNN military analyst, the retired Rear Admiral John Kirby, knows firsthand the military options here range from bad to worse.

Admiral Kirby, we talked a bit about this yesterday in the wake of all this. You just heard Will Ripley talk about, the Americans do forget. Americans do forget the Korean War. It was a long time ago.

In any table-top exercise you remember from your days at the Pentagon or at the State Department, a lot of Americans are saying, take out a missile site, take out a testing site, use American power to send a message. If the United States did that in any simulation, is the reaction every time that North Korea then launches an artillery barrage on the South?

JOHN KIRBY, CNN MILITARY AND DIPLOMATIC ANALYST: Well, without talking about classified war gaming, what I can tell you is that there's no good option here if you use military force to try to prevent or preempt -- and I'm not saying you should ever take that off the table. Look, we have an obligation to defend ourselves and our allies. But you have to expect that North Korea will respond as well. And what they will do is put many of the people of Seoul in direct jeopardy and direct danger. There is no easy way to solve this militarily.

Frankly, John, there's no easy way to solve this at all. And there's no one-path to success. I was listened to you talk to Will Ripley. You're going to have to have a comprehensive set of options ahead of you, all designed to try to get the North back to the negotiating table.

I think the administration is doing the right thing in terms of trying to put in place stronger sanctions. What's really key there is they've got to be implemented by everybody. And you don't want to starred a trade war with China to do it because we have other things we need China's help with in the region.

Number two, the military options that you've heard Secretary Mattis talk about, he keeps using the word defend. I think that's appropriate. I think they are definitely making it clear that we're going to -- that military options are going to be defensive in nature and not offensive.

And lastly, and you've heard Secretary Tillerson talk about this, we're not interested in regime change. They need to make it much more clear to Pyongyang that that's not what we're after because China does not want a unified peninsula. They worry about a violent regime change that's going to send thousands, if not millions of refugees into Chinese territory and potentially put American troops camped out on the other side of the Yalu River.

Last point, John. You talked about the war and it's being forgotten. And I agree that a lot of Americans don't remember that war. But, remember, it's not technically over. There's only an armistice in place. We never actually solved that war. That might be something worth putting on the table.

KING: And we'll see if putting it on the table, if -- if -- if you get to negotiations. Admiral Kirby, appreciate your help and your insights.

KIRBY: You're welcome.

KING: With us here to share their reporting and their insights, Margaret Talev of "Bloomberg Politics," Jackie Calms of "The Los Angeles Times," Matt Viser of "The Boston Globe," and Rachael Bade of "Politico."

The president's options are pretty horrible here. I want to -- I want you to listen to one of them. This is General Michael Hayden, the former CIA director. He's now a CNN contributor. One of the big issues here is the United States says it will negotiate but it wants North Korea to say the negotiations are about giving up its nuclear program and its missile program. North Korea says we won't do that. And so how do you get to the table? General Hayden says, if you get to the table, the United States is probably going to have to make a pretty big concession.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL HAYDEN, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY DIRECTOR: Talk to the North Koreans. It's just -- the conditions under which the talks will begin. And, frankly, I think it's a sad reality that the talks will be about limiting, controlling, perhaps making more transparent a North Korean nuclear program, not dismantling that program.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Is there any way, and this is not an issue unique to President Trump. Presidents -- both President Bushs went through this to a degree. More George W. Bush than George H.W. Bush because of the escalation of the program. President Clinton, President Obama. Is Donald Trump, President Trump, the Trump administration, willing to concede North Korea is a nuclear power? The position of the United States is, it will not be. It already is. But the position of the United States is it will not be. Are they willing to give that away?

MARGARET TALEV, "BLOOMBERG": Well, publically, the answer so far has been, no, absolutely not. But I think, certainly privately, there seems to be a broad recognition that North Korea has calculated, based on Libya, what have you, every nuclear power -- aspiring nuclear power that the U.S. has had policies with one way or the other that -- that the continuation of their efforts and the development of this program is the only thing that gives them any leverage for anything.

[12:10:07] So I -- there's no White House official I talked to, there's no North Korea expert that I talked to who thinks that whatever you call it, whatever you say out loud, whatever the U.S. acknowledges its policy to be, that it is realistic that North Korea would actually -- actually abandon its ambitions.

KING: The president, just moments ago, had a call with President Moon of South Korea. There was a big dust-up over the weekend when the president tweeted, essentially got in the face of an American ally at a very sensitive and delicate moment. They happen to live right there across the DMZ, saying your policy of appeasement is wrong. They just had a call that the South Korea government says was highly productive. The United States willing to lift some restrictions on ballistic missile size, warhead size upon South Korea. So a productive call now. But it took more than 30 hours, I think, for it to happen. A lot of talk in the neighborhood, in the region there, that, what was that about?

MATT VISER, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": That the timing -- I mean the timing of a lot of that was so peculiar about trade issues. You know, thing that weren't a surprise in terms of policy, but the timing certainly was given the tensions over there. And so I think there probably is an effort to smooth that over. But, again, it's -- President Trump's Twitter account versus sort of his advisers getting in, intervening and sort of orchestrating a call.

JACKIE CALMES, "THE LOS ANGELES TIMES": And this call to President Moon in South Korea, which is on the peninsula, which has the most to lose in any military strike, comes after President Trump talked twice to Japan's leader, Shinzo Abe. And in -- as Matt said, in the space of two days, there was a one-two punch where President Trump said that he was going to abandon the trade agreement with Korea that was negotiated and accepted by two presidents, Republican and Democrat, and a -- and bipartisan Congress, more Republican votes, and then that using the word appeasement, which is so loaded.

KING: Right.

CALMES: You know, to say that anyone, let alone an ally, is appeasing anyone after the weight that word took on prior to World War II.

RACHAEL BADE, "POLITICO": And just to piggyback off of that, this call, again, trying to smooth over relationships with South Korea. I can tell you from my perch on Capitol Hill that, you know, I was hearing a lot of concern from lawmakers because of that tweet. This is a time where the United States needs to be drawing on its allies and really to push back on North Korea in unity, world unity, is extremely important to lawmakers. And so we sort of saw this on Capitol Hill where Trump attacked, you know, Republican lawmakers he needs to do tax reform and to get a lot of this stuff done. Now, you know, knocking South Korea, an ally he absolutely needs in this fight right now.

KING: It's the punch -- the punch instinct seems to be counterproductive.

BADE: Absolutely.

KING: But it's an instinct we see from the president quite frequently.

I want you to listen here to Ambassador Haley. A very strong statement at the United Nations today. This part of it reminiscent of just after 9/11 when George W. Bush stood up to the world and said, you're either with us or against us in the fight against terrorism. That the United States was going to make stark choices.

Listen to Nikki Haley saying she wants the Security Council to pass sanctions. And then she said the United States will view very harshly any country -- and this is a direct message to China and to a degree to Russia -- any country that continues to do business with North Korea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NIKKI HALEY, U.S. AMBASSADOR TO UNITED NATIONS: The United States will look at every country that does business with North Korea as a country that is given aid to their reckless and dangerous nuclear intentions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: That following a tweet from the president and a statement from the secretary of Treasury, saying the United States is working on its own new sanctions package. Is the United States willing to start a trade war with China? The Chinese representative at the United Nations said, sorry, no, don't tell us what to do about our economic relationship with North Korea. Is this administration willing to back up those words and have essentially, you know, say nothing, we won't trade with China?

CALMES: Not those -- I mean it would be devastating for us.

VISER: Right.

CALMES: I mean it's not in our interests. And the problem with this is that not only -- it's so easily seen as an empty threat that it undercuts the credibility of the president, which is already a problem, as Rachael alluded to, that members of Congress are worried that the president's words are carrying less and less weight. And when you make empty threats, there's no weight at all.

BADE: You need to look at also, how is this going to affect the U.S. economy if we stop all economic ties with China? Congress is not going to, you know, just back this willy-nilly. This is very -- this would have serious implications on every American and the financial situation here. So I don't see Congress getting behind this one bit.

TALEV: But there are, of course, a whole array of tools between like robust trade and no trade, right? There are complaints, WTO complaints, if you believe in the WTO as an enterprise, like, right? So --

KING: But that takes months and months and months. The president's needs Chinese help now.

TALEV: And if you --

KING: Essentially this --

TALEV: Yes.

KING: The debate between Pyongyang and the United States over how China would step in and frame any negotiations that were going to happen.

TALEV: And they're two different levers. On is to say, do it because we'll make things difficult on our trade relationship, and the other is today, do it because it's an -- a global imperative. It's -- things have reached a boiling point. These guys are much further ahead than any of us wanted them to be and we know it's difficult for China and changes your balance of power on the common or the region or whatever, but the world expects you to do this. That's a fundamentally different case to make to a partner in a situation than do it or we're going to get into a trade war with you.

[12:15:18] KING: We will see. We'll continue to watch the developments of the United Nations. We'll see how this plays out. Whether diplomacy is an option.

A we move on, the president's prepared, we are told, to end protection for the so-called dreamers, but he's also giving Congress time to pass a law that would let them stay.

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KING: Welcome back.

President Trump apparently on track to end the so-called dreamers program. That's an Obama era plan, also known at DACA, that protects young, undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children. It would protect -- it protects them now from deportation. Sources are telling CNN, the president will abolish DACA but gave a six-month delay which would allow Congress to pass a possible legislative fix. In limbo, nearly 800,000 people working or studying here in the United States. This is the president back in February.

[12:20:07] (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We're going to show great heart. DACA is a very, very difficult subject for me. I will tell you.

I love these kids. I love kids. I have kids and grandkids. And I find it very, very hard doing what the law says exactly to do, and you know the law's rough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: It's an understatement to say this issue fractures the Republican Party. This is Senator James Langford, Republican of Oklahoma. The White House is responsible for immigration enforcement and border security, not immigration policy. It is right for there to be consequences for those who intensely entered this country illegally. However, we as American do not hold children legally accountable for the actions of their parents.

Others, though, like Republican Congressman Steve King are pushing for an immediate end to the program. He says this, ending DACA now gives a chance to restore rule of law. Delaying so Republican leadership can push amnesty is Republican suicide.

And that is the debate the president will launch into full volume with this decision tomorrow. In the sense that if you're -- if you're a hardline immigration voter who supported the president, this is a promise he said he was going to do this on day one. So it's seven months later, he's doing it.

However, isn't he also sending a green light to Congress?

CALMES: Right.

KING: If you pass a fix, the White House has not said they would veto. The White House has said nothing on the issue. So he -- the president's essentially saying, Obama did this the wrong way with executive orders. I'm going to end it. But if you guys can get your act together -- and you walk The Hill every day -- if you can send me a legislative plan that says they can stay, they can stay. What would that do to the Trump base? BADE: It sounds like -- it sounds like, yes, that he is open to that,

especially if he gets some border wall money to that -- to go with it. However, if, you know, Congress' past actions on immigration reform is any prologue for what we're going to see in the next six months, the dreamers are in big trouble. I mean they have a really busy fall. They've got to raise the debt ceiling. They've got to avert a government shutdown. They want to do tax reform. This is like huge legislative things here, right?

So I just don't see how they do all this this fall. Yes, I've heard Republicans on The Hill talk about a potential deal. Wall money for basically codifying DACA. But Democrats have said that they're not going to give an inch on the border wall. They've -- even if it's like 20 feet worth of physical structure, they've said they'd put their foot down. So maybe people are hopeful thinking there's a middle ground, but it's certainly going to be tough. There's no doubt about that.

VISER: You wonder if there's a -- sort of a smaller fix of just addressing DACA? I mean we've seen the comprehensive immigration reform battles of the past.

KING: The votes are there for that if you count the Democrats. But would Speaker Ryan do that to his own conference, because that would set off -- I don't want to use the words on polite daytime television -- within the Republican Party. If he essentially told that big chunk on the right, I'm ignoring you and I'm going to cut a deal with Democrats.

VISER: And there might be a -- Mike Kaufman, for example, has some legislation, that they would have a discharge petition, get it on the floor. You know, Paul Ryan then looks weak for not being able to stop that. But it does come to the floor and they use Democratic votes to pass something like that.

CALMES: Congress doesn't have the time or the space in the time that's left this year to do the things they have to do, the budget, the debt limit, Harvey aid. To layer on DACA as well, for the president, if he's going to end the program, or announce that he's ending it tomorrow, but with a six-month delay to get Congress to act, he's as much just ending it, period, because they're not going to act in that time frame.

And he could -- where's the leadership? He could have done that. February -- you ran the tape in February of how much he loves dreamers. Where's the -- he could have -- a leader would propose legislation to Congress. I -- in decades of covering Congress and the White House, I was thinking about this before I came to the program today. When have I ever seen a president try to have it both ways? I love dreamers but I'm ending the program. I can't think of another example.

KING: IT's a punt without a doubt. And to your point, you're absolutely right, and we're going to talk more in the next segment about Harvey aid, the debt ceiling, all the thing Congress has to do. But the people who watch out there, in the real America, not Washington, think, yes, so, my kid is sick, I've got to get them to school, I've got to deal with, you know, refinance my mortgage. I may have just had a flood in the Houston area. I have to do all that. Why can't Congress do all that?

CALMES: Right. Right.

KING: But to the point here, this is part of the president -- this was a signature issue for the president, especially among Republicans. Some of the blue collar issues and trade helped him with Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan and the like.

But if you look at -- let's just do a scorecard on the president on his signature issue right now. You know, end Obama executive orders? Some progress, but still a work in progress. A big decision tomorrow here. Build the border wall, Mexico pays for it? Not really any progress right now. Some committee action in Congress. The Department of Homeland Security is looking at prototypes if they ever get the money, but not really any progress there. An active travel ban? Some progress. Remove criminal undocumented immigrants. A good deal of enforcement progress there. And federal funding for sanctuary cities. Again, some progress there and a lot of court battle. Reform legal immigration. You would say some progress or you could say to your point, nothing big. We're at -- in the eighth month. This was a signature issue for this president. That's not a great report card.

[12:25:01] TALEV: Right. And so the question with DACA becomes, however he exactly does it, if what he's doing tomorrow is, in fact, to say this administration does not recognize this policy anymore, until Congress acts or if Congress never acts, the ball is then in the Trump administration's court. How do they enforce it? When individual work permits expire, let's assume that's how it happens. So on Tuesday of next week, all of a sudden you don't have a reason to be here anymore. What's going to happen? Are there going to be enforcement mechanisms, you know, sort of aggressively against individuals? Or is the administration going to continue a policy of prioritizing people with criminal activity? What's that threshold for criminal activity?

It -- what it is likely to do in the absence of quick concrete action by Congress or by a court is create a new enforcement kind of dilemma or framework question for this administration.

KING: And will it also create what we've seen on other issues, chaos within the Trump administration in the sense that you'll know Jeff Sessions or Stephen Miller inside the White House would push for enforcement --

TALEV: Sure.

KING: Because they've long promised it. But what a lot of the conservatives, the base feel, especially the Breitbart nationalist base feels with Steve Bannon gone, is that, you know, Jared and Ivanka and the -- what they call Manhattan Democrats in the Trump White House would push the president letting go.

TALEV: In the opposite direction. That's right. VISER: And then, I mean, you -- the worry of a lot of Republicans right now is the images of 800,000 -- of -- regardless your feelings about illegal immigration, the most sympathetic of immigrants who are here legally, kids, people in college, you know, people trying -- you know who haven't broken the law, being, you know, deported. And those images, I think, are what a lot of Republicans are concerned about.

CALMES: And speaking of images, more than 50,000 of those DACA are in the Houston area.

VISER: Houston.

KING: That's right.

CALMES: One of whom died volunteering to do rescues.

KING: Right. And the speaker came out with a pretty strong statement over the weekend saying the president shouldn't do that. He should leave that to us in Congress. Doesn't he put his own credibility on the line here, even though he knows full well how difficult of an issue it is within his group?

BADE: Oh, yes, it certainly divides the conference and it definitely puts the speaker in a tough position. It's -- you have to also look at this in the frame of September. Ryan, Paul Ryan, is about to put a bill to raise the debt ceiling through his conference that works with Democrats, does not include spending cuts. His conference is already really ticked at him.

I was talking to some leadership folks last week who before this decision, you know, has been -- was reportedly made, were saying, I really hope he doesn't do this because it's going to poison the well with Democrats. We know we cannot raise the debt ceiling or avert a government shutdown without Democrats. And if they get mad about this and they say, we're not going to vote for this, how are we going to get these things done, because they could very well demand things on DACA in order to make -- take these tough votes for Paul Ryan and for Mitch McConnell to get across the finish line.

KING: Well, keep that thought. We'll develop it more fully in the next segment.

Up next, Congress finally getting back to work. Many people going back to school. Congress comes back to work. And before diving into tax reform and the budget, first up, an emergency relief package for Harvey victims. Can they pass that without a big fight?

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