, secretary of defense james mattis holding a press conference alongside chinese leaders at the capitol. perhaps the most important topic of the discussion today, the big one, north korea. >>> and we're following breaking news in flint, michigan. possible terror attack at the airport there. th this, after a police officer was stabbed in the neck and the suspect allegedly yelled ala akbar. ken, what do we know about anything to do with the suspect, motivation, what do we know? >> ali, details have been slow to come in on this one. i can tell you that the fbi has issued a statement saying it's too soon to know whether this is terrorism. they're investigating whether it is. we are reporting that the suspect shouted allu akbar. the officer, jeff neville, is in stable condition, the father of two. that's good news. the suspect is being questioned right now, ali. >> and they are expecting a press conference at some point. there was some release from the police to say they don't believe this is connected to other incidents. in other words, they're not on the lookout for other things happening

. >> also new today, defense secretary james mattis in asia stepping up calls for china to help number north korea's nuclear program. here's what he said in singapore earlier. >> as a matter of u.s. national security, the united states regards the threat from north korea as a clear and present danger. the trump administration is encouraged by china's renewed commitment to work with the international community toward denuclearization. ultimately we think china will recognize north korea as a strategic liability, not an asset. >> meanwhile vice president mike pence is in iowa today as part of an effort to unite the republican base there. he'll join a number of congressional lawmakers at senator joni ernst's annual roast and ride fund-raiser. >>> let's go right now to the white house and nbc's kelly o'donnell standing by with us. kelly, with a good saturday to you. we have the fired fbi director, james comey, set to testify before the senate intel committee on thursday and white house press secretary sean spicer left open the question of whether the president might use executive pr

after trade between the two countries and audience laughed and right now james mattis is in brus sels for an important meeting of nato defense ministers who he has taken to task for. our pentagon correspondent joins us live from brussels. tell us about the meeting there, hans nichols. james mattis has been an ally to rex tillerson so far, i'm guessing rex is at least calling him, look what i got myself into. >> reporter: what we know right now, there's a meeting taking place between sretary mattis and nato defense ministers and they are hungry for information, r details on how many troops the u.s. will a demand get sent to afghanistan and b contribute themselves because early this morning we heard from the secretary general of nato he said there would be a few thousand more troops for the nato mission in afghanistan but no one here knows what that is going to be. what we've heard from other defense ministers, he's not telegraphing and giving specifics and indicating to them, they won't get hard numbers on how many additional american troops will be sent to afghanistan until they compl

discussed. the other thing we know now is rex tillerson and james mattis were consulted on the statement but their underlings were not, that huge elements. bureaucracy normally involved with synthesizing and acquiescing a message and making sure that this isn't what donald trump did to james comey a loose threat thrown out there but you have muscle potentially behind it, that that aspect of it didn't happen, and we should all be very worried about that. >> colonel, what would you advise? this is actually enormously complicated and had the situation of president obama talking about the red line back i think in 2012 in syria that was then i think subsequently crossed, and now you have the situation where a late-night threat is put out publicly to assad. i mean, what would you advise president trump to do? >> well, you know, we already have contingency plans to do retaliatory strikes at a wide variety of targets inside syria. what's really important is we don't necessarily have any strategy overall for syria. if we want to attack syria in the event that they attack civilians with

tillerson, secretary of defense james mattis holding a press conference alongside chinese leaders at the capitol. perhaps the most important topic of the discussion today, the big one, north korea. >>> and we're following breaking news in flint, michigan. possible terror attack at the airport there. th this, after a police officer was stabbed in the neck and the suspect allegedly yelled ala akbar. ken, what do we know about anything to do with the suspect, motivation, what do we know? >> ali, details have been slow to come in on this one. i can tell you that the fbi has issued a statement saying it's too soon to know whether this is terrorism. they're investigating whether it is. we are reportingt

james mattis taking questions earlier tonight from members of house armed services. here to talk about this white house and russia and all of it as former nebraska democratic senator for 12 years, former nebraska governor for four, bob kerry, also happens to be a recipient for the medal of honor for his role in vietnam as a navy sael and importantly was a member of the 9/11 commission. sir thank you for coming to our table and joining us. >> my pleasure. >> your preview of sessions tomorrow? what did you make of that cabinet meeting today? >> oh, my god, it was like watching stalin with his cabinet. it was really without precedent. that's for sure. >> sessions tomorrow. what do you expect? and how much does san forrial courtesy. >> it mattered in confirmation. won't matter tomorrow. >> doesn't matter that he sat among them? >> no, certainly if your republican you have got the unpleasant task of trying to defend the president. and they will go over anything that is going to make the president look better. but it is -- no, there won't be senatorial courtesy extended. this is a very

repeatedly denied any wrongdoing. >>> defense secretary james mattis says the u.s. may have withdrawn troops too quickly from afghanistan during a visit to nato headquarters in belgium. nato agreed to send more troops to help train and work with afghan security forces. >>> in iraq today, the government just declared victory over isis inside its borders after a key strategic victory in isis de facto capital of mosul. the iraqi prime minister says the isis caliphate is through. iraqi troops captured the mosque in mosul where it was first announced nearly tlhree years ago. isis fighters destroyed themselves when troops started closing in. ma matt, in simple terms, still fighting in parts of mosul. what can we tell folks to secure the remainder of isis' stronghold? >> thanks, peter. retaking this mosque is major, symbolic blow against isis. as you mentioned, still a whole lot more to be done. hundreds of isis fighters are still held up in the old city. many more retreated outside of mosul. this battle for mosul, this is the second largest city in iraq. it's been going on for more than nine month

the president demands. here is what defense secretary james mattis said. >> mr. president, it's an honor to represent the men and women of the department of defense, and we're grateful for the sacrifices our people are making in order to strengthen our militaries for our diplomats always negotiate from a position of strength. thank you. >> not one word of praise for trump. there is no word tonight whether president trump is now considering firing secretary mattis for refusing to publicly display his personal loyalty to the president. joining us now, eli stokols, for "the wall street journal" and john heilemann is back with us. eli, the report earlier tonight of mass hysteria in the white house at the thought that the president is actually considering and may very well be very close to deciding to fire the special prosecutor. we think we've seen something close to hysteria inside the white house before. i guess this would be the peak. >> well, it's really hard to know for sure because hysteria, it's sort of chronic. it's almost become the norm inside the west wing. and it's difficul

to take wider action in syria but according to that report secretary of defense james mattis has personally shot down their proposals more than once. a former general has not had this much authority in the american government since dwight eisenhower was president. >> i'm greatly concerned that we may be slipping into a hot war with assad's forces, with iran or even with russia. we need a clear strategy from the trump administration. >> that was secretary chris coons of of the foreign relations committee today from capitol hill. joining releases committee. jeremy bash a former chief of staff to leon panetta when he was secretary of defense. jeremy what happens if the president simply says, you guys are in charge? defense secretary, everybody else concerned with our assets in syria, afghanistan, iraq, it's up to you. you don't have to check with me. make any decisions you want. >> well national security is a team sport, lawrence. you need every player working together. you need the state department working in concert with the defense department, working in concert with the uniform

defense jamestown james mattis to the authority to the set troop levels. he received criticisms from john mccain who argued will is no strategy to achieve victory. with us we're pleased to have back on our broadcast retired four star army jury panel barry mccaffrey. decorated veteran of vietnam. and former u.s. drug czar with experience in government and smirlt throughout the world. so, general, if it is general mattis who is overseeing strategy in afghanistan, a, is that unusual? and b, what do we think the mattis strategy will be in afghanistan our nation's longest war. >> well, brian it's important for us to remind ourselves, the actions in control of the u.s. armed forces are governed by law, gold water nichols. there are nine joint commands on the face of the earth. the only person that can give orders to the joint commanders and afghanistan jern john mickless the secretary of defense and the president of the of the united states. most of this is a reversion to y of having a white house and the secretary of defense focus on conceptual approaches to warfare and allowing tactical

to "politico" today, quote, national security mcmaster, james mattis, and secretary of state rex tillerson all supported trump in reaffirming that commitment and had worked in the weeks leading up to the trip to make sure it was included in the speech, according to five sources familiar with the episode. one source telling "politico" there was a fully coordinated other speech everybody else worked on and it wasn't the one trump gave. another source adding trump's top national security team, quote, didn't know that section had been removed. it was only upon delivery. it doesn't help two of the people who did tried to persuade trump to reaffirm that commitment, right now they're in australia helping clean up the diplomatic mess trump began when he and the australian prime minister got into it during that testy phone call during the inauguration. this is not just about a reluctance to play well with others, there's direct hostility from the president himself. on twitter, on the phone n person and in direct opposition to the advice but his advisers. what are we supposed take away fro

adviser hr mcmaster, defense secretary james mattis and secretary of state rex tillerson worked with trump for weeks on the speech to make sure that the language was included. they found out that the language was deleted only when the president delivered the speech. it is worth hearing how hr mcmaster defended the president's speech now that we know that he fought for the language that was deleted from the speech. and when you consider that hr mcmaster is supposed to be one of the adults in the white house who will lead the president in the right direction. but apparently he is now one of the people in the white house whose job description also includes defending the indefensible. >> everybody else says it. the vice president says it. so it's something that president, vice presidents, senior officials, u.s. officials always say. so he made a decision not to say it. what should people read from that? >> he didn't make a decision not to say it. in the speech he talked about article 5, having been invoked after the brutal attacks on the united states, mass murder attacks in the uni

also defense secretary james mattis are holding a news conference with their australian counterparts. we're expecting that they will address, as they have moments ago the london terror attack that left seven civilians dead. let's listen to those remarks. >> well, president trump hen he came into office wanted an accelerated campaign against the enemy. this is an enemy against all civilization. there is a reason 66 nations have joined the campaign besides the arab league, the european union, and interpol. and in this campaign before we were shoving them from one town to another and they're falling back, we now take the time to invest the town and make certain the foreign fighters cannot escape to return to paris, france, to australia, to wherever they came from and bring their message of hatred and their skills back to those places and attack innocent people. but i would also they'd in the midst of all this, we have not changed not one bit of our rules of engagement. we have relented not one bit in terms of trying to do everything humanely possible to protect the innocent on the battl

congress about the bureau's russia investigation. defense secretary james mattis is calling north korea a clear and present danger. he innssued this warning about pyongyang in sing more. >> coupled with reckless proclamations, it signals a clear intent to acquire nuclear armed ballistic missiles including those of intercontinental range that pose direct and immediate threats to our regional allies, our partners and all the world. >> new remarks today from vladimir putin. the russian strongman suggesting that russian hackers were framed for interviewing -- for intervening in the u.s. presidential election. here's putin in the nbc exclusive sitdown interview with megyn kelly airing on her new show tomorrow night. >> translator: hackers can be anywhere. they can be in russia, in asia, even in america, latin america. they can even be hackers, by the way, in the united states. very skillfully and professionally shifted the blame, as we say, onto russia. >> joining us now is matthew miller, former chief spokesman for the justice department and an nbc news and msnbc justice and security analys

should say that the defense secretary, james mattis, has echoed your sentiments, sir, telling the house that north korea is the top threat to u.s. security. he went so far as to outline what a war with pyongyang might look like. let's take a listen to that. >> it will involve the massive shelling of an ally's capitol, which is one of the most densely populated cities on earth. it will be a war that fundamentally we don't want. >> is that kind of a war avoidable, and does the trump administration need to rely on china to help rein in kim jong-un? is that an effective strategy? >> the answer, yes, it's avoidable, but not by business as usual. in this book i argue that business as usual will likely produce history as usual, and thrucidity's trap reminds us when we upset a ruling power, generally bad things happen. so in the current situation, as secretary mattis testified, we are coming very soon to a fork in the road. either kim jong-un will test the capability of delivering a nuclear bomb against san francisco or los angeles. that's the either, on the one hand. or the u.s. is going

video. luckily, no one was hurt. still ahead, defense secretary james mattis overseas this morning meeting with his counterparts in brussels. after the break, the details on the message mattis bringing to try to reaffirm our allies of the united states commitment to the alliance. (vo) a lifetime of your dog's nutritional needs... all in one. purina one. healthy energy, all in one. strong muscles, all in one. highly digestible, and a taste he loves, all in one. purina one smartblend is expertly blended... with 100% nutrition, 0% fillers, always real meat #1. lifelong smart nutrition. it's all in one. purina one. depend real fit briefs feature breathable, cotton-like fabric. in situations like this, there's no time for distractions. it's not enough to think i'm ready. i need to know i'm ready. no matter what lies ahead. get a free sample at depend.com. i need the phone that's where i happen to be... to be the one that rings. i need not to be missed phone calls... to not be missed. i need seamless handoff... canyon software. from reception, to landline, to mobile. i need one number...

in chief has given the secretary of defense, james mattis, the authority to set troop levs there. president trump has received criticism just today inact from senator john mccain, who argued there is no strategy to achieve victory. with us tonight to talk about all this, we're so pleased to have back on our broadcast retired four-star u.s. army general barry mccaffrey, decorated combat veteran, ground commander in desert storm, and former u.s. drug czar with of course experience in government and military throughout the world. so general, if it is general mattis who is overseeing strategy in afghanistan, a, is that unusual and, b, what do we think the mattis strategy will be in afghanistan, our nation's longest war? >> well, brian, it's important for us to remind ourselves the actions in control of the u.s. armed forces are governed by law. goldwater/nicholls. there are nine joint commands on the face of the earth. i think most of this is just a reversion to a more sensible way of having a white house and a secretary of defendant focus on conceptual approaches to warfare and allo

sydney with rex tillerson along with the defense secretary james mattis. meeting withnary australian counterparts. they did address saying the united states and australia are committed to defeating isis where they showed their face and i'm paraphrasing and they are showing their face as we've seen. also, the defense secretary saying that they've not changed one bit of our rules of engagement as far as the united states, but the battlefield is a humanitarian field and we're doing everything possible to keep everyone safe while taking out the enemy. of course, these high level talks in sydney, australia are happening in light of the london terror attacks where the terrorists mowed down pedestrians and stabbing. seven people were killed, dozens injured, 50 people were hurt. 12 people have been arrested since those attacks, and we know tonight isis claimed responsibility for the attacks, although nbc news has not independently verified it as well. also in a country that has been held tight with fear and also being held on high alert, we know that manchester also held their one love conce

absurd what they're saying. >> more on this in the next hour as well. new today, james mattis is in asia stepping up calls for china to curb the nuclear program in nblg north korea. here is what he said in singapore earlier. >> as a matter of u.s. national security, the united states regards the threat as a clear and present danger. the trump administration is encouraged by china's renewed commitment to work with the international community toward denuclearization. ultimately, we believe china will come to recognize north korea as a strategic liability, not an asset. >> a lot happening. back here in the united states, mike pence will travel to iowa to try to unite the republican base. he will join lawmakers at the roast and ride fund-raiser. i want to go to the white house and kelly o'donell. former fbi director james comey will make a highly anticipated testimony on thursday. what are you hearing from the white house? are they concerned about what he could say? >> reporter: the white house wants all of the information out and want the investigation to be thorough and over. at the s

brussels next where james mattis is meeting with nato allies about sending more u.s. troops to afghanistan. ♪ ♪ (vo) you can pass down a subaru forester. (dad) she's all yours. (vo) but you get to keep the memories. love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. (upbeat dance music) (dance music abruptly stopping) (dance music starting then stopping) let's take a look at some numbers: 4 out of 5 people who have a stroke, their first symptom... is a stroke. 80 percent of all strokes and heart disease? preventable. and 149 dollars is all it takes to get screened and help take control of your health. we're life line screening... and if you're over 50... call this number, to schedule an appointment... for five painless screenings that go beyond regular check-ups. we use ultrasound technology to literally look inside your arteries... for plaque which builds up as you age- and increases your risk for stroke and cardiovascular disease. and by getting them through this package, you're saving over 50%. so call today and consider these numbers: for just $149 you'll receive five screenings

secretary james mattis says nato has to finish the job in afghanistan. the question is what does that mean for u.s. troops there? >>> plus, president trump has tweeted that he doesn't have tapes of his conversations with jim comey, but a tweet does not seem to be enough for the house intel committee. we have those stories and a check on weather when we come back. take the zantac it challenge! pill works fast? zantac works in as little as 30 minutes. nexium can take 24 hours. when heartburn strikes, take zantac for faster relief than nexium or your money back. take the zantac it challenge. and it's also a story mail aabout people and while we make more e-commerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget... that your business is our business the united states postal service. priority: you hey you've gotta see this. cno.n. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it's going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i'm gonna just go back t

defense james mattis. >> i don't know enough about it yet, the details. let me get up to date and i'll talk to you on the plane. >> what -- the london police saying this is a terrorist attack, two dead, dozens wounded. >> i need to confirm everything. i like learning about something before i talk. let me look spoke it. >> really? that's good. at least someone in the white house does. >> david ignatius, that's actually how leaders usually act. secretary mattis is the best of the best. >> it's not funny, though. >> that's classic mattis. i've heard him say that more than once. could we please get the facts before i spat out an opinion. mattis is in a really difficult position. he is trying very hard to maintain his contact with the white house, not get out of state with the president. he never knows where he's stepping. be a responsible leader for the military. he's walking that fine line every day. i think it's going to get more and more difficult, where he feels he has to speak out. i think he really doesn't want to. he'd really like to keep it zipped. he's used to being a general and

. thank you. >> thank you. >> that was defense secretary james mattis on monday making it clear where his loyalties lie, where they should lie, with the people of the united states and where his gratitude lies, that's with the men and women who give their all every day for the united states armed forces. with us retired four-star general stanley mcchrystal who commanded american and international forces in afghanistan and former navy s.e.a.l. chris fussle the author of the book "one mission how leaders build a team of teams" previously he co-authored general mcchrystal's book "team of team new rules of engagement." thank you for being with us. i want to get to the book in a second, but i have to tell you, i know you have to be very envious right now of our secretary of defense who suddenly is working at a pentagon where they set force limits in afghanistan. i mean, you guys had to fight to get what you thought you needed. the president actually has given general mattis, secretary mattis, that ability to have generals figures out what generals need. >> well, he has, and he's given it i

. >> talk to your secretary of defense first, mika. talk to james mattis first. let him talk to sitcom. let them come up with a plan and find out what you can say and what you cannot say. >> i think this is going to have consequences in a big way, especially with our allies. let's get to health care. but with time grinding down, the cbo's -- >> can we offer congratulations to andy? >> andy? >> well, andy did a lot of work. it's like the chinese. you ask the chinese, like a couple years ago how the french revolution was. was it good or bad thing? too early to tell. right? andy card was like johnny apple seed. he was just laying the seeds, doing the policy work. you know what i'm getting to. >> yeah. >> right now george w. bush is popular as barack obama. do you think that would have ever happened if andy wasn't just waiting patiently? what about that. george w. bush -- >> he's a good person, and he has demonstrated the capacity to lead during tough situations and is being recognized for it. and yes, i saw president bush the first, number 41, and he's doing great. >> that's fantas

branch of the fbi. today carl ga mattis confittis did talk to james comey and he will work with the committee investigating that. >> tomorrow the intelligence is going to have their next open hearing of the russians attack. the committee will take testimonies tomorrow on other countries. we think about how the country responded, it is unsettling of the response so far of the attack on us, at least by your executive branch, the response is limited to top white house officials securing the services of private defense council, that's pretty much the only thing doing to response. that's where we are and that's th what they are doing. joining us now of senator mark warner of the top democratic in the senate which is investigating the attack. it is nice to have you with us tonight, thank you for taking the time. >> thank you rachel, thank you for having me. >> you said your committee is at an early stage in your investigation, we mention tomorrow's hearing how other countries have dealt with russians attack in their elections. should we expect to hear more through the summer? >> i think y