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New Day

Camp Fire in California Now Deadliest in History with 42 Dead; Sinema Wins in Arizona, Flipping Arizona Seat; GOP Congressman Weighs in House Flip. Aired 7-7:30a ET

Aired November 13, 2018 - 07:00   ET

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

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The Camp Fire now the deadliest fire in the history of California.

[07:00:04] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They have only gotten on to the offensive in the last 24 hours.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your heart breaks for folks and what kind of destruction they may be coming home to.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Welcome to my home in Malibu, half gone.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I'm the last house up there. Everything is gone.

SEN. BILL NELSON (D), FLORIDA: Rick Scott isn't interested in making sure every lawful vote is counted.

RICK SCOTT (R), FLORIDA SENATE CANDIDATE: Bill Nelson is clearly a sore loser. He's just here to steal this election.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you don't comply with the law, we can't be certain there is no fraud.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Florida's elections laws are sufficient to stand up to the task.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You've got to let this play out.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY with Alisyn Camerota and John Berman.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, and welcome to your new day. Alisyn is off. Erica Hill is here with me, which is lovely.

We do have breaking news out of California. Catastrophic wildfires ravaging that state. The death toll is now at 44. Forty-two of those deaths are from the inferno called the Camp Fire, which is now the deadliest fire in California's history.

And the numbers, the death toll is expected to rise, because dozens and dozens of people are still unaccounted for. Now a different fire, the Woolsey fire, is threatening thousands of homes in Southern California. And today they are expecting near hurricane-force winds, that will only make things worse.

President Trump did approve a request for a major disaster declaration, which does provide the state with federal resources. This comes just days after an inaccurate and, critics say, an insensitive statement where he threatened to cut aid and blamed forest management for these fires.

ERICA HILL: We are also keeping a close watch on where things stand now, one full week post-midterm elections. And breaking overnight, an unprecedented victory in the Senate race in Arizona, where Democrat Kyrsten Sinema edged out her rival, Martha McSally, to flip a seat that's been in Republican control for more than two decades. She also becomes the first women to represent Arizona in the Senate.

In Florida, a recount still under way in key cases there ahead of Thursday's deadline. And tensions continue to flare, prompting a judge to urge both sides to, quote, "ramp down the rhetoric."

There is a lot to cover. We want to begin with CNN's Dan Simon, who is live in that devastated town of Paradise, California, in Northern California, with more of these developments -- Dan.

SIMON: Good morning, Erica.

There was fear at the very beginning that there was going to be a very high death toll with this fire, given the fact it came in so fast that you have a lot of elderly retirees who live in the town of Paradise.

Well, here we are 42 people dead, and we know that there are going to be at least 150 more search-and-recovery crews today looking for bodies. They're also going to be aided by cadaver dogs.

There is also the grim task of trying to identify these bodies. We know that many were just so badly burned that they can't be recognized. So they're asking family members whom they suspect may have lost loved ones to provide a DNA sample, so ultimately, these remains can be identified.

In the meantime, Erica, let me explain where I am. You can see these shopping carts here. We are at a Safeway grocery store that has been destroyed. And this is just an example of what has been lost here. It underscores how much has been lost in this community. We're talking about schools and churches and restaurants and motels. It's just so overwhelming. This cleanup is going to take years -- John.

BERMAN: All right. Dan Simon for us. The pictures there simply devastating. Dan, thank you very much.

Joining me now on the phone is Justin Bartek. He grew up in Paradise.

Justin, if you can hear me, tell me what happened to your family home.

JUSTIN BARTEK, GREW UP IN PARADISE (VIA PHONE): Yes, I did grow up in Paradise. I found out yesterday that my family home where my father lives was destroyed, so that was pretty devastating. On Friday, we had also found out that my sister's home was destroyed. So two homes in a couple days there.

BERMAN: I'm so sorry that your family is going through this. You said your father still did live in Paradise in that home that was destroyed. How's he doing today?

BARTEK: He's OK. We have family in neighboring Chico, California, so my cousin has a home there. So all my family is staying with them right now, but, you know, obviously very devastated.

BERMAN: But he was able to get out safely?

BARTEK: Yes. You know, luckily they had an intuition to just go, so they left town with just the clothes on their backs. So it's been pretty tough, obviously.

BERMAN: How did you find out that the home was lost?

BARTEK: My sister actually sent me a picture, and that was the final confirmation. We had had a feeling that it was gone, but we didn't know until we actually saw the pictures. So that confirmed it.

BERMAN: And what did you see when you looked at that picture?

BARTEK: Honestly, a lot of memories and, you know, just I couldn't believe that it was gone, you know, on one hand I could because I saw the other devastation, you know, on Facebook, you know, about pretty much half of my friends on there are from high school so I was seeing everything in real time last week as it was happening.

But just to see our home, you know, it took a while to finally get that confirmation, and when we did, it was shocking, to say the least.

BERMAN: You know, a home is people like to say just belongings; it's just stuff, but it's also memories. You lived there since 1985. I mean, that was your childhood home there. I have to believe it was a lifetime of memories for you and your sister and your father.

BARTEK: Yes, it definitely was. And you know, with the scramble to get out of town, I mean, things like my mother's ashes were left in the home and just, you know, that's tough to deal with as well. But, you know, like you said, it's just possessions. I'm just happy that my family was able to get out.

BERMAN: I'm so sorry. That's got to be so difficult to deal with. What are your father's plans now?

BARTEK: We're still trying to figure that out. My sister and her husband, they have some options to move maybe to the Sacramento area for his job, but, you know, my dad is retired. He did a lot of volunteer work at the church and things like that. So his world is pretty much flipped upside down. So we'll have to figure it out as we go. BERMAN: We've been following the death toll very closely, and we also

understand there are still as many as 100 people missing. All your family, friends and acquaintances, are they accounted for this morning?

BARTEK: Yes. My family is accounted for, but, like you say, you know, it was a retirement town, so I can only imagine, you know, those folks that couldn't get out. I've already heard the horror stories of people getting trapped in their cars and things like that. You know, there's just going to be more devastation to come.

BERMAN: Justin Bartek, thank you so much for being with us. We're sorry for what your family has gone through. Please send our regards to your father this morning.

BARTEK: Thank you. I will do that.

BERMAN: For ways you can help those affected by the California wildfires, go to CNN.com/Impact.

HILL: We will, of course, continue to keep a focus on those developments in California.

We do also want to bring you up to date on politics this morning. Arizona with a new senator elect, Democrat Kyrsten Sinema defeating Martha McSally. McSally conceded Monday, and this makes Sinema the first Democrat in 24 years to hold the Senate seat.

Meantime, in Florida, no concessions there, John.

BERMAN: No, it is still very much going on. A race for this Thursday deadline for the recounts in the races for governor and Senate. This is a live look at Broward County, where election workers, they are busy this morning, busier today than yesterday when we looked in with live pictures.

A judge there has told both sides to cool the heated rhetoric, but supporters of President Trump are using the controversy, sending an e- mail saying the president refuses to let Democrats, quote, "steal election victories."

Joining us now, former special assistant to President George W. Bush and CNN political commentator Scott Jennings; "New York Magazine" senior correspondent and CNN contributor Irin Carmon; and former Clinton White House press secretary and CNN political commentator Joe Lockhart.

I want to start with Arizona, because this is a race that we did not know one week ago. In fact, one week ago, Martha McSally was leading on election night. So this is a race where Democrats took stings a little bit more Republicans.

I know a lot of Republicans got the candidate they wanted in Martha McSally. This was someone they were all behind. And she ran very close to President Trump, and this is a state that matters a great deal for the future of both parties. SCOTT JENNINGS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes, it does sting. Going

into election say Republicans felt pretty good about Arizona, at least better than they did about Nevada.

So to lose this one, it hurts. Interestingly, McSally is probably going to wind up in the Senate anyway, because Kyl is going to resign, and in fact, McSally may wind up being the state's senior senator if she gets there before Kyrsten Sinema is sworn in. So that would put McSally back on the ballot in a couple of years.

But you know, Republicans here have accepted the outcome, and I think that stands in stark contrast to what's happening in Georgia and Florida, where Democrats refuse to accept the outcome.

BERMAN: Can I note one thing on that, thought? Which is that Martha McSally has accepted the outcome. President Trump and national Republicans have urged her not to. So in this case you were crediting her with some grace in defeat, but it's not by choice in terms of the national party.

JENNINGS: Yes, but she -- well, she has handled herself exactly right in the wake of this election. She clearly lost. The other person got more votes. I don't like it, but that's what happened. And she knows the right thing to do is accept the outcome of a democratic process. She lives to fight another day.

And I think that's what Democrats should conclude in the other two states. They're clearly going to lose the Georgia governor's race, and it's unlikely a recount is going to change Florida. So I think if we want everyone to accept outcomes, then everyone has to accept outcomes here.

HILL: It's interesting, too. You point out that it is likely in Florida that things, you know, could turn out pretty well for Republicans. And yet the messaging that we're hearing specifically from Rick Scott is the exact opposite. The judge even saying to both sides, "Listen, you both need to dial it back a little bit here," but that's -- that's clearly not what's happening when we look at Florida.

IRON CARMON, SENIOR CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK MAGAZINE": Yes, I think that there's a difference between Florida and Arizona. Actually, if you look at the margin between Sinema and McSally, it is far more substantial, even before these populous Democratic counties have been fully counted.

Florida law has triggered this recount. If I'm -- if I'm one of their statewide Republicans running, I like my odds, which I think really raises the question why this incendiary rhetoric? Why is it that Republicans specifically are making -- are sort of casting aspersions on the process here? I think it's really concerning. I think for all of the reasons that the judge went on to say, Judge Tudor said, "Words matter." Right? Words matter these days.

And I think he was making a very specific reference to some of the violent events that have happened. You have people standing outside of Broward County shouting, "Lock her up" about Brenda Snipes. I think if you are a political official right now, it's incumbent upon

you to not ramp up the rhetoric but to tamp it down, let the process play out. You'll probably end up winning anyway, but allow Florida law to take its course. And it's really concerning that President Trump also has -- has sort of whipped up everyone into this frenzy of voter fraud when there's absolutely no evidence that's emerged that any kind of fraud is happening.

BERMAN: In fact, the secretary of state's office, which is run by a Republican and the investigators from that have said they see no evidence of fraud.

And I wouldn't be surprised, Scott, if Bill Nelson after the state mandated recount happens, the state-mandated recount, automatic and then manual, if he's still behind I won't be surprised if Bill Nelson takes a very similar tack as Martha McSally.

I don't want to let Arizona go just yet. We'll come back to Florida in just a minute, Joe. Because I want to give you is the Democrat sitting here a chance to weigh on what happened there.

You can talk about the future if Arizona, you believe, is the future for the Democratic Party. It represents a ship, and I also think it's interesting, again, about how this may put the entire election in a bit of a different perspective than it first looked like one week ago.

JOE LOCKHART, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think looking forward, it does represent kind of a realignment in our politics. Arizona, Nevada, now pretty solidly Democrat.

BERMAN: Nevada is solidly Democrat. Arizona --

LOCKHART: Sure. But Texas is moving.

And if you look at the demographics, it's all good news for the Democrats and bad news for the Republicans. So I think you will see that. Will we see that in 2020? 2022? We're not sure.

I think looking back, you know, we tend to get caught up in our own narratives quickly and there was -- there was some early bad news for Democrats on election night, and the reality didn't catch up.

This was a historic election for Democrats. The most House seats picked up since Watergate. In the Senate, a map that everyone agreed favored the Republicans. Trump country, red states, where at the end of the day Democrats may lose one seat. They may, depending on what happens in South Florida, come out even.

That is a big victory. And you're seeing, you know -- you know, wave elections are when a bunch of people vote in ways that, you know, that you wouldn't expect them to. So I don't know if this is a wave. It is a realignment. You know, the voting public has gotten younger. It's gotten more diverse. It's gotten more suburban. All of those things are a positive sign going forward for Democrats.

HILL: And fascinating, too, as we move into 2020, which as John pointed out, we are about halfway there at this point. Now that we're a week past the midterms we are solidly at least halfway there.

BERMAN: Iowa is tomorrow. Yes.

JENNINGS: I think Joe is right about the realignment on the geography. I think Arizona and Georgia are absolutely top five target states in the 2020 election. I do think Republicans start the 2020 election favored there, but it's obvious. These are going to be tier one starting states, whereas in the past Republicans have counted on them. On the flip side, I think Ohio is gone for the Democrats.

At least gone in the way -- it won't be the way it used to be. So we are seeing a slightly different battleground map than we're used to looking at for the last several elections.

BERMAN: And it may be Florida is just Lucy with the football always for the Democrats there.

LOCKHART: Yes.

BERMAN: It may never be attainable.

LOCKHART: But if you look at the Midwest, Donald Trump is president right now because of what happened in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. Couldn't have been better news for Democrats in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.

So I think, yes, Ohio is a problem area for Democrats, but you now have two paths for Democrats to win in 2020. You go down through the Southwest, the West, the Northeast, but you also have the traditional Democratic states in the Midwest coming back to Democrats. That's a hard map for -- not impossible, but a hard map.

BERMAN: We did talk about both those paths for Hillary Clinton, and they both ended up severely blocked, it turned out.

I want to go back to Florida now after trying to divert us away from it for a second. And Irin, I think you bring up a good point there, which is why? Why are Republicans fighting the way they are, given Scott's point that the margin here is fairly big. It's very unlikely --

CARMON: right.

BERMAN: -- that the numbers will turn up there for the Republicans. So why, then, wage this fight this way?

[07:15:03] CARMON: Well, look, I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist, but it seems to me like it's a dress rehearsal for 2020.

It's a dress rehearsal for saying that any election in which the Republican doesn't win immediately on election night, you know -- you had President Trump saying only election night counts should be considered valid, if the Republican doesn't win immediately that means the election is invalid is the allegation behind these kinds of -- these kinds of statements. I think that, when you now have Amendment 4 passing in Florida, where

you have 1.5 million people who were convicted of felonies who are now going to have the opportunity to vote, the kind of capacity issues that are happening in Florida, which are responsible for a lot of these delays, many more people voting than used to, the system isn't really set up for it.

We're setting up now for 2020 to have exactly the same kind of conflicts in Florida, exactly the same kind of backlogs, poor ballot design, logistical problems. And if you've already laid the groundwork to say that the election officials here are incompetent, it allows you to keep your supporters whipped up and it allows you to question the results.

HILL: We should point out, too, in the "New York Times," Maggie Haberman and others reporting this is essentially the GOP strategy to do this. And it's something, Scott, we have seen from President Trump before. I mean, all we have to go back and look at pre-2016. The president's setting the stage and trying to sow some seeds of distrust in case things don't go his way. Does this end up backfiring when you continually attack the institutions?

JENNINGS: Well, I see this similarly but almost on the other side of the mirror, in that in 2016, we were all in a lather about the possibility that Donald Trump wouldn't accept the outcome of the election.

But in this particular case, it's the Democrats who don't, at least from my perspective, appear to want to accept the outcome of the elections.

What I think we have in both parties is a breakdown of a willingness to accept Democratic outcomes. It's clear the Republicans have won in Georgia, and it's really clear to me, in fact, that if Florida law is followed, the Republicans will have won there, too.

But it's Democrats who have to face this choice. Are they going to do what they accuse Trump of? And that is dragging a state or, in 2016's case, a country through this weeks-long morass, because they can't accept the outcome. I think both parties have to learn to accept outcomes. You don't win any election. You don't win any election.

BERMAN: I will say, if next week after all the recounts are happening, the Democrats don't accept the outcome, maybe if Republicans don't accept the outcome then come back; and I think it's a really important time to have that discussion. Right now, it's still the legal process that's playing out.

JENNINGS: Thursday at 3, that's the moment of truth for Nelson. He's going to be losing. What will he do?

BERMAN: Well, there's the manual recount after that after Thursday at 3 if he's within the margin there. I take your point.

Joe, I want to shift gears very quickly, if I can, and give you the last word on the Mueller investigation. Because Jerome Corsi is an interesting figure. From swift boats to birtherism to everything else. Claims he thinks he's going to be indicted in the next few days by Mueller.

I don't know whether to take his word for it or not. But it certainly does seem that there's there'theres a ton of activity with the special counsel investigation. We saw Michael Cohen in D.C. yesterday. What do you see?

LOCKHART: Well, I don't take anything that Mr. Corsi says seriously. He's a self-promoter and a big of a kook. You know, he made his -- he made his bones on birtherism which is racism in any way you look at it, so I don't pay attention to racists.

Let me -- let me do say, though, that I don't know what Mitch McConnell is up to. I don't know what Rick Scott is up to. I do know what the president is up to here.

And he has singlehandedly and with a great determination sought to undermine every institution in this country that we depend on: the media, the electoral system, law enforcement, justice, FBI, the intelligence community. And he's sought to do that, and you have to ask the question why.

And if you go through the scope of history, the reason leaders do this is to take and gather power and become authoritarian. And I think we have to watch this extremely closely.

You know, when we have -- when we're sending 15,000 troops to the border for a political stunt, that's a warning sign. And we've got to put these things together, because before you know it, we're going to have a situation where, you know, people don't believe anything and only -- we're going -- he's going to self-fulfill his prophesies: "Only I can solve these problems."

BERMAN: Joe Lockhart, Irin Carmon, Scott, thank you very much for being with us. Appreciate it.

HILL: With the votes still being counted in several key races, "CNN TONIGHT" is airing a prime time special, begins at 8 p.m. Eastern, "Election Night in America Continued." You don't want to miss it.

BERMAN: Because it's still going on. Now, we may not know the results in all of these races, but we do know that Republicans will not be the majority in the House of Representatives. So what will that be like for Republican members? We're going to ask one Republican member on where he thinks things stand right now and why the party lost as many seats as it did. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[07:33:31] BERMAN: Big change coming to the House of Representatives. Come January, Democrats will be in control for the first time since 2010. So will their Republican colleagues work with them or will we see gridlock in Washington?

Joining us now is Republican Congressman Adam Kinzinger of Illinois. He sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Thanks so much for being with us, Congressman.

REP. ADAM KINZINGER (R), ILLINOIS: You bet.

BERMAN: For the last several years, you've been part of the majority, you're about to be part of the minority, which I think will be the first time for you?

KINZINGER: Yes, I got elected in 2010, so that's when we took the majority.

BERMAN: So what happened?

KINZINGER: I don't know. You know, I think we saw this coming. I mean, if you look at every election in the past with the exception of Clinton after failed impeachment and George W. Bush, the party in power lost seats. We saw it coming.

I also think we need to do a better job of reaching out to people my age, reaching out to people in the suburban area of the country and -- and we paid for that. It was interesting.

So there were areas of the country where the election results for Republicans weren't that bad, and then you saw areas like Illinois, where it was a blood bath for Republicans. So I think as we look back over the next couple months, we'll figure out. And I hope we can really kind of get to heart with what our message needs to be and how can we achieve big things for this country?

We've achieved some really big things, I think, in the last couple years, but now we have an obligation, I hope, to work with Democrats moving forward; and I hope they realize they have an obligation to work with us, too.

BERMAN: They say yes. I mean, they say infrastructure among other things. Is that an area?

KINZINGER: I hope so. Yes, I think -- I think if they're willing -- it's really going to be on Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats. Are they willing -- do they want to work with the president? And then the president has to ask, OK, am I willing to work with a Democratic majority? And if both sides say yes, I think infrastructure is an easy one to get to.

[07:25:10] Here's the thing I'm concerned about, though, is like in January, January 5, 2020, elections are going to infect the whole system. And so we have to be able to say, OK, we don't necessarily care who gets credit. Let's just do some big things for the country.

BERMAN: I can't believe you say it's going to wait until January 5.

KINZINGER: It's actually starting today.

BERMAN: We've done two segments on 2020 already here today.

The president blamed, to a certain extent, the loss of some of these House races on some of your House Republican colleagues. I want to play for you what he said about Mia Love from Utah.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost. Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN; Now, for the record, we haven't called that race yet. They're still counting votes out there. Ryan Costello, retiring member, a friend of yours from Pennsylvania, said in a tweet that the president was pissing on Republican members. What did you see there?

KINZINGER: I was disgusted when I heard it happened. I mean, these are members that in their districts are reflecting their district. Some of them lost, because people were, frankly, voting against the president. And I think, if the president would have shown some more grace in that and said, you know, "We're going to miss them but thank you for your service," instead of "It's because you didn't back me."

I can tell you a lot of these folks, Mia Love backed the president a lot; and that may have cost her if she ends up losing. I know it's still open. So a little more grace would have been a lot better. I was very disgusted when I heard that. And I'm like, let's just look, let's go forward and look at how we're going to do better in 2020.

BERMAN: One of the things that might happen with the Democratic majority is there might be more oversight. There might be more focus inside the House of Representatives on the various investigations. The president has appointed Matt Whitaker to be acting attorney general. Eric Swalwell, a Democratic member from California, said, "We're not going to allow the president to kill this Russia investigation by hiring an assassin like Matt Whitaker to take him out."

KINZINGER: You know, if we're going to call out the president for some of his tweets, we have to be fair. And, Eric, I know him. I like him personally, but he has his history of just inflammatory tweets. This is one of those.

If they try to fire Mueller there will be a battle in the House and the Senate. I don't think that's going to happen.

BERMAN: Do you think Whitaker, though, might try to hamper the investigation or starve it of funds, and if he does, will you take action?

KINZINGER: Well, I'll tell you, yes, if they try to shut down this investigation, there's a lot of us that will. I don't think it's happening. And I think there's all this, like -- people are ginned up and upset about something that's not coming.

But that is an inflammatory tweet by Swalwell. He needs to be called out for that, too. And frankly, if we can all move forward and get along that's great. If not at least let's tone down the rhetoric, both sides, our side, Democratic side and actually give the American people a functioning political system.

BERMAN: You're a very active member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So I want to hit two points on foreign policy that are really important this morning.

Jamal Khashoggi, there is this audiotape that "The New York Times" is now reporting this morning that basically says one of the people on the ground involved with the murder of Jamal Khashoggi basically said, "Transmit to our boss that the job was done." The evidence just keeps piling up.

KINZINGER: Oh, yes.

BERMAN: That the crown prince had knowledge of it, may have directed it, certainly was connected to it. Has the time long passed for the president to take direct action against the Saudi crown prince?

KINZINGER: Well, I think there needs to be action. Here's where my concern is, whatever that is. There's going to be maybe some sanctions on travel, whatever.

We cannot fundamentally shift foreign policy based on this one terrible thing. Right? The same guy, for instance, Rand Paul talks about how we have to fundamentally change our whole relationship with Saudi Arabia. He's been advocating that for a very long time, is the same guy that's saying that we need to lift sanctions about Russia.

By the way, Russia killed two people with chemical weapons in the United Kingdom, and they killed journalists. So let's not pretend like that there's other people that are wholly in this. This is terrible on Saudi Arabia. There needs to be a cost, period.

BERMAN: Regime change?

KINZINGER: No, but we cannot fundamentally shift our relationship with Saudi Arabia based on this terrible thing. Because I'll tell you what? Iran, there are 50,000 dead children in Syria that Iran has blood on their hands. Saudi is the counter to Iran.

BERMAN: North Korea. David Sanger wrote an article in "The New York Times" yesterday which shined a spotlight on the fact that they are building and still operating secret missile sites throughout the country of all kinds of ranges, including missiles that may be able to carry nuclear warheads. This does not appear to be the denuclearization that the United States wants.

KINZINGER: Yes, I agree. I mean, we knew these existed; now we're starting to get them located. It's getting to be time where I think we have to -- we run out of patience with North Korea.

I was fine with the president kind of doing this, I guess, different way of diplomacy because we don't want war in Korea. Anything we can do. But if it gets to what it's looking like now, Kim Jong-un is just buying time. China is violating the sanctions, so is Russia. And we're going back to status quo while they run towards nuclear weapons. We're going to -- we need to be finding ourselves taking a tougher position.

Nobody wants war with Korea, but if you're not willing to have a military option on the table, diplomacy against an adversary will not and rarely ever works.