happening now, ridiculous. donald trump rejects the u.s. intelligence conclusion that russian cyber attacks were intended to interfere with the presidential election. a bipartisan call for investigation is growing. can trump simply dismiss the evidence. intelligence test, trump spurns daily intelligence briefings saying, a smart person doesn't need to be told the same thing every day, but the briefs contain critical national security information. is the president-elect shirking one of the most important duties of the commander-in-chief? russian relations. the clinton campaign now backs a call from at least ten members of the electoral college for an intelligence briefing on trump's ties to russia. now trump is believed to be favoring a ceo close to vladimir putin for secretary of state. is trump planning the biggest shift in u.s. ties to russia in decades? and plan of attack.

north korea's kim jong-un orders military drills and prepares for a simulated attack on the south korean leader's residents. is he using political influence in seoul to his advantage? i'm wolf blitzer. you're in the situation room. we're learning new information about russian interference in the presidential election and why intelligence now believes a series of cyber attacks were designed to help donald trump win. according to a source, they were convinced in part after discovering that hackers stole documents from both democratic and republican targets but leaked only documents deemed harmful to hillary clinton's campaign. president-elect trump continues meanwhile to reject the intelligence assessment, likening on twitter to a conspiracy theory. he goes on to ask why it wasn't brought up before the election even though in early october u.s. intelligence agencies said they were united in the belief

that russia was trying to interfere with the vote. and now at least ten members of the electoral college are asking for a classified intelligence briefing on russian election hacking and trump's ties to russia before they vote next week to officially elect the next president. clinton campaign chair john podesta is now supporting their demand. we're covering that and much more with our guest, including the former chair of the house intelligence committee. and the former assistant attorney general for national security, john carlin is standing by. our correspondents, our expert analysts, will be joining us. let's begin with cnn's phil mattingly. he's over at trump tower. a growing number of republican breaking with the president-elect and calling for a full investigation into russian interference in the presidential election. what's the latest? >> reporter: that's exactly right, wolf. the consensus among the intelligence community, it appears to be coalescing as you

note on capitol hill. there appears to be very real momentum about a congressional investigation into the alleged russian hacking, but the president-elect is not backing down, continuing to attack and his advisors say the reasons are quite simple. they believe this has nothing to do with the hacking at all. instead it is a political play designed purely to undercut his presidency. >> i think it's ridiculous. >> reporter: tonight president-elect donald trump blasting u.s. intelligence committee as a political ploy. >> i don't believe it. >> reporter: trump on his second week of rejecting the conclusions of russian meddling in the election and casting as persians on the agency and their intent. >> we don't want intelligence interfering with our politics but we don't want politics interfering with our intelligence and that's what's happening here. >> i think this is an attempt to

try to delegitimize president-elect trump's win. >> trump calling it equivalent to, quote, a conspiracy and asking, quote, why wasn't this brought up before the election. but it was, publicly, and repeatedly. first russian hacking and russia's motives. >> i strongly condemn any such efforts. i think we should approach all of these issues on the assumption that the russians do not wish us well. >> reporter: mcconnell also joining with a bipartisan group of senators calling for a congressional inquiry into the allegations. the renewed clash comes after a

report in the "washington post" that the cia has concluded not just that russia wanted to sow discord in the election but actually sought to get trump elected, following an earlier report by cnn. now ten members of the electoral college, nine hillary clinton backers and a republican, demanding an intelligence briefing on any ongoing investigations into trump ties to russia before they are set to meet on december 19th. a call back by john podesta, who said, quote, electors have a responsibility under the constitution and we support their efforts to have their issues a close

personal relationship would color his approach to vladimir putin and the russian threat. >> reporter: former 2016 contender, florida senator marco rubio tweeting, being a friend of vladimir putin is not an attribute. >> to me a great advantage is he knows many of the players and he knows them well. he does massive deals in russia. >> reporter: trump advisors saying despite the capitol hill backlash inside his own party, so far the president-elect has not been dissuaded for the pick of rex tillerson. that could come as soon as mid-week. also worth noting, the line of potential cabinet picks continue to go through that building behind me. earlier today rick perry came

through, as did carly fiorina. obviously an adversary on the campaign trail during the presidential campaign. sources saying she's under consideration to be director of intelligence. >> thanks very much. we're also learning more about why so many u.s. intelligence officials now believe russia was working to help donald trump win the election. pamela brown has that part of the story. you're getting new information from your sources. >> that's right, wolf. we are learning the u.s. government has evidence showing individuals connected to the russian government bank rolling operations to spread fake news about hillary clinton during the election. sources say russian hackers breached g.o.p. organizations prior to the election but those documents were never leaked. tonight intelligence officials increasingly believe russia was trying to undermine hillary clinton's campaign for donald trump's gain. tonight u.s. intelligence officials are increasingly confident russia intended to help donald trump win the

election. a view the cia shared with congress in the classified briefing after the election. >> they've pieced together a picture and based on their ability to piece together this picture, they've come up with an assessment and that as far as we know basically says this, that in fact the russians did intend to have donald trump elected president of the u.s. and what they wanted to do in this particular case is grease the skids for him. >> reporter: in october, 17 intelligence agencies released a joint statement, saying they were united in the belief that russia tried to sow chaos during the election with the release of hacked materials, but officials tell cnn new intelligence sheds more light on russia's apparent motive to help donald trump win. former cia director michael more el says the hacks are the political equivalent of 9/11. >> even before the election the entire u.s. intelligence community believed that the russians were interfering in the

election. what changed now is it seems like the cia believes that the intent here was to advantage donald trump and disadvantage hillary clinton in the election. >> reporter: u.s. officials tell cnn part of the cia shift in assessment is based on the fact hackers obtained documents from both the dnc and rnc but chose only to accomplish documents harmful to democrats online. investigators did find a breach of a third party entity that held data belonging to the rnc. the fbi has not concluded the rnc was directly breached and they have repeatedly denied being hacked. the extent to which the kremlin is tied to the hacks remains murky. it was discovered a digital footprint tied to the russian government. there's still no smoking gun directly tying the russian government to the theft of e-mails from the dnc and clinton campaign manager, john podesta,

that were released through wikileaks. >> they have people that do the work for them and that gives them plausible deniability. that gives them more independence and they can say with a straight face in an open forum, we never did any of this. >> reporter: vladimir putin has repeatedly denied russia's involvement. even if russia did try to help donald trump, it's unknown how that might have impacted the outcome of the election. a point made in a fiery exchange by trump spokesman and cnn michael smerconish. >> show me what facts have shown that be anything undermined that election. donald trump with 306 electoral votes, 2300 counties, 62 million americans voted for him. what proof do you have or does anyone have that any of this affected the outcome of this election. >> reporter: the fbi has not

concluded about the motive. wolf? >> thanks very much for that. let's get some more on all of this. former congressman the chairman of the house committee who supported donald trump in the election. thanks, congressman, for joining us. >> good to be with you. >> let me get your response to the reports that russia has hacked some republican political targets, some members of the house, pundits, an rnc vendor, not we are being attacked continually by everything that's going on with the iranians and others and we're being attacked in the political arena, in the military arena and the economic

arena. this is the world we live in today. >> but the news, congressman, is that donald trump doesn't believe what the intelligence community is saying, what the fbi is saying, that the russians interfered in the u.s. presidential election. that's the news. >> i think what we're hearing right now is that there's a disagreement between the fbi and the cia. >> there's not a disagreement on whether the russians interfered. there's a disagreement on what their motive was, the cia believes their motive was to help donald trump beat hillary clinton in the election. the fbi more conservative. they believe the russians were simply trying to be sort of nasty and undermine the u.s. election system. they were under the assumption that hillary clinton was going to win. they just wanted to muddy it up a bit. that's the difference. but they both believe the russians interfered. >> i think it's probably true that the russians interfered, that the iranians and the chinese may have also played some different games going on in the election.

this is what intelligence communities do each and every day. they try to either get secrets or try to make life miserable for their opponents and their enemies. i don't know exactly what mr. trump is thinking or talking about but i think where this whole thing is going astray because it's starting to -- the allegations now with the clinton team saying you need to brief the electors, this is starting to undermine or they're trying to undermine the election of mr. trump, and there is no evidence at all that that is even a valid approach or a valid avenue to go down. it's totally ridiculous in that move. i think what you have is you have donald trump looking at it from -- this is a guy that's worked for more than a year to win this election and he worked his heart out, and all of a sudden now you got people trying to undermine it. i think he's coming at it from a slightly different approach. >> in this particular case, what all of this is about is that the

cia, the fbi, the department of homeland security, the director of national intelligence, general james clapper, released a formal statement on behalf of all 16 of the intelligence agencies in the u.s. saying the u.s. intelligence -- this is october 7 of this year. the u.s. intelligence community is confident that the russian government directed the recent compromises of e-mails including u.s. political organizations, referring to the democratic national committee. if you're chairman of the house intelligence committee and the director of national intelligence says that, do you dismiss that as donald trump is doing? >> no, you don't dismiss it. i don't think that's what donald trump is doing. >> he says it's ridiculous. >> it's ridiculous what people are doing with this information in trying to undermine this

election. the calls now in congress, this is what intelligence committees do. they do the oversight. they will look into this issue. they will look at what role russia played and what they tried to do in this election. it's the normal operating procedure. and for people trying to say, you know, this is all brand new, no, cyber is something that the intelligence committees have been looking at for a period of time and they will look at these allegations and they will go through it and they will determine exactly what happened and what the response should be. >> i assume you agree with the senate majority leader, mitch mcconnell, that there should now be a full scale investigation of russian hacking into the u.s. election by the senate armed service committee, the senate intelligence committee? you agree with senator mitch mcconnell? >> i think that cyber is an area that the intelligence community continues to need to focus on. whether this is the highest

breach that has occurred in the last 12 to 18 months, i'm not sure whether that's warranted. this is the new battleground, wolf, but it's happening economically and militarily and i think some of those threats may be even greater than what this allegation is about what russia did in this election. >> in several interviews now and recent ones including this past sunday, the president-elect has defended russia against the intelligence community's assessment, the fbi's assessment. he said yesterday for example he thinks the perpetrator of these hacks, in his words, could have been somebody sitting in a bedroom someplace. the other day he said maybe it was somebody who weighed 400 pounds and lives in new jersey. why is he offering these excuses for russia? >> i'm not sure he's offering them for russia. i think what he's recognizing and you and i have talked about

this before, i haven't seen the digital footprint that ties this to russia but what we do know is that it could possibly have been china. it could have been iran. the other thing i think that is frustrating to him is what came out in the last number of months is that the cia and the intelligence community was cooking the data that was coming out of middle east and was downplaying the success of isis and i think one of the things that also needs to be investigated here, wolf, if they're going to look at what russia did, they ought to take a look at the plittization of intelligence. we need to make sure that that's not happening because that's very dangerous to our national security. we need intelligence providing us with data and information and staying out of the politics. >> what i hear you saying and you're a former chairman of the house intelligence committee,

congressman, is that you think that career intelligence officials, whether it's the cia or other agencies are politicizing their reports to the president of the united states? >> no, but what i'm saying, wolf, is we do know that there's pretty clear evidence and i think a report came out that said that intelligence was politicized regarding isis. and if it occurred in that case, is it occurring other places. that accusation and in terms of the information coming out on isis warrants as much of an investigation in terms of what's happening, what now is being said about russia. they both could be serious problems. >> one final point. what i hear you saying, you

believe what the u.s. intelligence community in effect is doing now is what the u.s. intelligence community did before the war in iraq in 2003 at the end of 2002 when they said there was no doubt that saddam hussein had stock piles of weapons of destruction. colin powell, the secretary of state, went before the u.n. security council. george tenant, the cia director was sitting right behind him and made that case. that case was clearly wrong, but it was because of political reasons why they did that as opposed to good u.s. intelligence, is that what you're saying is going on right now? >> wolf, i don't know. i have not seen the materials. all i've seen is the same kind of information that you had that appear to be the cia or someone else leaking into the media. i haven't seen it. i don't know if it's politicized. i do know and i have some concerns about some of the stuff that's come out from the cia like i said about their assessment of isis.

people said it was politicized. there are other cases where i'm concerned about information that has come out. but i don't know and i haven't seen the information. i'm sure that the committee will look into both of those issues. what russia did in this election cycle and how this cia and the intelligence community and whether there are any grounds for the accusation that it would be politicized both in the conclusions and why parts of this information are coming out but not all of it. >> one final question. are you anticipating a position in the trump administration? >> i have absolutely no idea. i stay in close contact with the trump team and if they determine that there's a position where i can help them on national security issues, i'd be more than willing to take a look at it and more than willing to serve. >> nothing offered yet, right? >> nothing offered. absolutely not. thanks. >> we'll stay in close touch

with you. the former chairman of the house intelligence committee, thanks very much. up next, what is the specific evidence that points to russia's hacking in the u.s. presidential election? i'll ask a former assistant attorney general for national security, my interview with john carlin is coming up next.

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senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is among the growing number of republicans breaking with donald trump and calling for a full scale investigation of russian cyber attacks designed to influence the u.s. presidential election. let's get to the former assistant attorney general for national security, john carlin is joining us. thanks for joining us. until recently you served at the

justice department in this sensitive post. >> thanks, wolf. great to be back. >> is there a difference based on everything you know between the bottom line assessment of the cia versus the fbi when it comes to russian interference in the presidential election? >> there may be some difference in emphasis but let's look at what the community does agree on. >> the intelligence community? >> the intelligence community. 16 different elements from homeland security, the cia, fbi, to the nsa. all agreed that the russian government, the russian government directed cyber attacks into the united states along with other efforts designed to undermine confidence in the integrity of our election. that was stated publicly. we've only stated publicly what a foreign government tried to do without a criminal charge to it once before and that's when north korea attacked sony. this is significant and it demands serious attention by our government and a response to make sure not only that it

doesn't happen again by the russians but to all the other countries figuring what can we get away with in cyber space. >> that statement was released on october 7th. james clapper, the director of national intelligence, jeh johnson, the secretary of homeland security released a statement saying the u.s. intelligence committee is confident that the russian government directed these attacks. what's the evidence? >> i can't get into all of the sensitive sources and methods, but to put out a statement like that, that means that there's high confidence, unanimously across the leaders of each of the elements of the community that says russia did that. and that evidence can be things ranging from technical evidence, digital forensic evidence, to human sources, to inference from other patterns of behavior like very similar activity that's occurred in eastern europe and we're seeing now in germany. so they look across every single type of piece of evidence. they look across that mosaic and draw a high confidence

assessment, same type of approach -- to give you an example dating back to the sony north korea case, we literally in that case used fbi cyber profilers, the same guys who figure out who committed a homicide to figure out bits and bites who's responsibility. >> since becoming president-elect it's now been more than a month, would that kind of evidence, sources and methods, the most sensitive information until recently you were privy to it, be shared with the president-elect, the evidence to back up that assertion? >> certainly once the president assumes office i would assume -- >> that will be on january 20th. he's the president-elect. in the presidential daily briefs, the intelligence briefings he's getting, would they share with him and his top national security advisor, general flynn, for example, the former director of the dia, the defense intelligence agency, would they share this specific information? i ask the question because trump

remains skeptical. he doesn't buy it. he says it could have been china, north korea, a 400 pound guy sitting in his bed in new jersey. >> i'm going to try and remain as i always have from commenting on politics. i'll just say that certainly once he's in office, he'll have access and be able to be briefed by the top level professionals who have been serving our country through administration after administration for years, get a full sense of the intelligence there and draw his conclusions. i'm not sure he said that russia wasn't trying to undermine confidence and the integrity of the election. the bottom line is they were and it will be important for the president and his new national security team and congress, heartened to see the seriousness they're taking it. >> donald trump is the president-elect, he doesn't accept that conclusion, at least not yet, there's a difference of

opinion, analysis, between the fbi and the cia. they both agree the russians interfered. the cia thinks the russians were doing so in order to help donald trump beat hillary clinton and become the next president of the united states. the fbi is more cautious and thinks the russians were interfering to embarrass the united states to disrupt the election. the russians were under the assumption like so many others that hillary clinton was going to win but they just wanted to muddy it up. where do you stand? >> i think that's a good example to degrees of emphasis. you know they're taking certain actions to undermine confidence in the election. what was their intent, were they thinking at the time we're going to do this because we actually want to support one candidate and think they'll win. are we doing this because we believe hillary clinton is going to win but we want her to come in weakened. are we doing this just to create mischief. when you look at the different roles and you're telling me what the cia thinks now, but the

cia's traditional function is to think about what foreign leaders overseas are thinking. they're tasked with foreign intelligence collection and assessment. our role when i was at the fbi and working with them at the department of justice was different. we usually collect within the united states. we make intelligence assessments but we also try to prove cases beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. >> the cia's bottom line is circumstantial in part because the information that emerged was all damaging to the democrats and hillary clinton. if they did hack republican institutions or individuals, none of that information was significantly leaked. that's one of the reasons why the cia apparently concluded what they concluded. i guess the bottom line question is this. how vulnerable is the u.s. right now to russian cyber attacks? >> that is the key question and it's not just russia. we are vulnerable to russia, to

the pacemakers in our hearts are going to be digitally connected. they already are. the cars we drive are essentially commuters on wheels. drones that are flying through the air are digitally connected. we have to take this seriously, dedicated the resources now, make sure we do a better job at defending but also tell the world that if you mess with america, we will mess with you back. >> john carlin is the former u.s. assistant to national security. thanks for coming in. how important are the daily intelligence briefings that president-elect trump is skipping. plus north korea's attack on

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we're following the latest firestorm started by donald trump's rejection of the u.s. intelligence community's assertion involving russia's malicious cyber attacks during the presidential election. today members of the trump team insisted that investigations of the cyber attacks are meant to delegitimize donald trump's win. let's bring in our

correspondents and our experts to assess. gloria borger, even if there's a disagreement between the fbi and the cia on why the russians were doing it, they both agree that the russians did it but donald trump isn't ready to accept that conclusion. why? >> because they may be conflating two things. one is he believes that lots of democrats are jumping on this band wagon because they want to delegitimize his election so he doesn't want to give them any, you know, any comfort in that. but he doesn't trust the intelligence agencies. this is a fact, and he has said that -- he has suggested that he'll get briefings from different people. so we don't know who that's going to be yet. i think it's troubling. i think richard nixon, when he was president, didn't trust the intelligence agencies, didn't read his presidential daily briefs, didn't do them. we may find that donald trump puts that responsibility to mike

pence, but at this point he has to establish, i think, some kind of a relationship with intelligence in some way, shape or form because that's how you make decisions about life and death in this country. >> clearly the fbi and the cia, the intelligence community in effect, they agree that the democratic institutions, the dnc, john podesta, the campaign chairman for hillary clinton's campaign, they were hacked by the russians. you're getting new information, pamela, on what was hacked on the republican side. >> that's right. because as you know, really only the democratic documents were released online and so it makes you wonder did the hackers have anything from the republican side. we have learned that yes, they did. they had rnc documents, documents from g.o.p. individuals and organizations that they had hacked, yet most of those documents were never leaked online. so that's just one of the reasons why members of the cia and other intelligence agencies believe that russia was

essentially trying to grease the wheels for donald trump and help him win and undermine hillary clinton's campaign. that's one factor out of many that now has the cia -- >> to be precise, the republican national committee itself was not hacked, but elements who worked with the rnc -- >> a third party vendor. >> a third party vendor were hacked and various republican think tanks and pundits were hacked as well, but that information by and large was not released. is that the information you're getting? >> that's exactly right. of course we don't know what those documents contain. it may not have been useful to the hackers but i think it was enough for intelligence to look at it and say all of this information was released from the democratic side yet nothing was released from the republican side. that says something. >> what does it say? >> it says the russians wanted donald trump to win the election. i mean, i don't see how you can draw any other conclusion. >> the fbi's conclusion is they wanted to disrupt and embarrass and muddy the waters if you will. they were working under the assumption that hillary would win and they just wanted to make

it obviously awkward. that's the fbi's position. >> you have to consider the difference between what the fbi does and what the cia does. mr. carlin made this point. the whole job of the cia is to determine what's going on in foreign countries what are their motivations. the fbi is a domestic agency that investigates crimes and intelligence failures in the united states. so the fact that the fbi can't conclude what's in the heads of russian leaders, i don't think that tells you anything because that's not the fbi's job. we have one agency that is supposed to determine that. they determined that the russians wanted trump to win. i conclude from that that the russians wanted trump to win. >> the fbi is notoriously a very conservative agency as you know. it's not surprising that there is some nuance in terms of how far they're willing to go compared to the cia saying we believe that russia was trying to help donald trump. >> conservative in some respects

but remember on the eve of the election, the fbi director released information that was incredibly damaging to hillary clinton's campaign. the cia did not release this information that could have been very damaging to donald trump's campaign. so i think that's an important point to keep in mind. >> how do you see snit? >> donald trump, clearly the trump transition team feels -- i think they believe it's less to do with the intelligence agencies and more to do with donald trump's critics trying to delegitimize him and his potential presidency. that's why you see the reaction that they have. i think one of the risks that he's going to have as he goes forward is, this is serious, there are serious enough charges here where there's going to be bipartisan movement to investigate it and find out more. we've heard of triangulation but i don't know if donald trump wants to run the risk of being triangulated against by congressional republicans and

congressional democrats who are trying to get to the bottom of this. that's one of the things -- >> because the republican leader, mitch mcconnell, he wants a full scale investigation. right now so many other republicans are jumping aboard that band wagon. democrats are as well. everybody stand by. there's more coming in. we're getting more information on why donald trump is skipping those daily presidential intelligence briefings. we'll be right back. there is no typical day. there is nothing typical about making movies. i'm victoria alonso and i'm an executive producer... ...at marvel studios. we are very much hands-on producers. if my office... ...becomes a plane or an airport the surface pro's perfect. fast and portable but also light. you don't do this 14 hours a day, 7 days a week for... ...decades if you don't feel it in your heart. listen, i know my super power is to not ever sleep. that's it. that's the only super power i have.

>> gloria, donald trump, the president-elect of the united states, is downplaying the importance of these daily presidential intelligence briefings, classified information. listen to what he said yesterday on fox. >> these are very good people that are giving me the briefings. i said if something should change, immediately call me. i'm available on one minute's notice. i'm a smart person.

i don't have to be told the same thing in the same words every single day for the next 8 years. could be 8 years, but 8 years. i don't need that. >> already suggesting he's going to run for re-election with the 8 years. so what's the precedent in this? >> there really isn't except for richard nixon who i was talking about before who didn't trust the cia, didn't want the intelligence briefings, allowed his vice-president to get briefings. he got briefed by henry kissinger. there really isn't much precedent on this. the way president obama has used it is essentially i'm told as a q and a session. he and joe biden did these beliefs together, and it's a way to get to know your intelligence people first of all at the very top, and it's a way to ask some tough questions and ask for more information. it's not just a one way, they're telling me the same stuff every day, i don't need it. it's the president of the united states getting to say why don't i know the answer to this

question, why don't i know the answer to that question, can you get me more on this and let's figure out this issue or that issue. so it's really very much a give and take which i think if you don't establish that relationship with your intelligence folks it becomes more difficult going on because when do they know to brief you, when there's an emergency that you maybe didn't see coming? that's a real problem. >> jeffrey, you would think an incoming commander-in-chief without a lot of national security, military experience, would want as much information as possible during these critical days leading up to the inauguration. >> we see just in this current controversy over the intelligence regarding russia and the election, he doesn't want to hear what he doesn't want to hear. he might get information that he doesn't like, so he's going to reject it in advance. i think it is a troubling possibility. i think he deserves to set up his administration how he wants to do it, but the question is,

why do we have an intelligence agency if the president out of hand is simply going to reject what he doesn't want to hear. >> kevin? >> i think this is a question of style and i think anybody who is surprised by donald trump's answers on this wasn't paying attention during the campaign. he never sold himself as a details guy, as somebody who was really curious about intelligence matters and meshed in the details. he's always sold himself as a decision maker and somebody who delegates. he did indicate in a number of these interviews that mike pence is getting the presidential daily briefing and a lot of what he's doing on the policy side of things in this administration is being outsoared to mike pence so it should not be a surprise. >> getting pack to our original discussion, very quickly, you're getting new information on who else was involved in hacking of republican activists? >> that's right. we have some new clues we're learning from our sources about

why people in the intelligence community believe that russia was trying to help donald trump and one of that is they've identified individuals connected to the russian government who were being bank rolled by the russian government to set up troll farms, essentially people in office buildings pushing out fake news about hillary clinton during the election, commenting, liking and that kind of thing. they've been able to trace these troll farms to individuals linked to the russian government. >> guys, stick around. to our viewers, please be sure to check out the first ever book from cnn, politics, called unprecedented, the election that changed everything. you can pick up your copy today in stores or go online at cnn.com/book. coming up, an alarming new threat coming in from north korea. kim jong-un's military is practicing an attack on the south complete with an assault on its presidential mansion. that really entertains us. logg i'm gonna use this picture on sketchbook, and i'm going to draw mustaches on you all.

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>> they're trying to figure out who their next president is

going to be and kim jong-un is pouncing on all of this. i spoke to a u.s. intelligence official who told me that kim's regime is war mongering and making gestures that are aggravating tensions on the peninsula. >> artillery barrage. commandos parachute in, take positions around columns as the building burns. these are north korean special forces. their target, a mockup of south korea's blue house, their version of the white house. >> i think this should be a wakeup call to the south korean government and the south korean people that you have a north korea which is still bent on the potential destruction of the south. >> the troops practice capturing an enemy who they say needs to be put on trial. this drill was personally directed by the country's dictator, kim jong-un. experts say kim's forces have good intelligence on the layout of the south korean leader's

residence. >> here we see a very well detailed reproduction of the blue house. we have the main facility here, the two auxiliary buildings and even the carport and even the unique pattern of sidewalk in front of the building. they paid very close attention to detail when they built this. >> the north koreans have staged an actual attack on the blue house, january 1968. armed with these weapons, dressed in south korean uniforms, they got to within 350 feet of the blue house. in a furious gun battle, at least 30 south koreans were killed, as well as 29 north korean commandos. one north korean attacker who was captured spoke to cnn. >> i came to kill the president. >> it was a mission that failed. and that leader's daughter is the country's president. she's just been impeached in a

political scandal, has had her power taken away. experts say kim jong-un will use the south korean crises, the political instability, to his advantage. >> they continue to have a political paralysis, it could be very difficult to deal with north korean provocation. we should keep in mind that north korea does have a very savvy sense for drama. they will be trying to get on a radar of the trump administration. >> it appears tonight kim jong-un's already on the president-elect's radar. donald trump telling fox news he needs more help in pressuring pyongyang. >> you have north korea, nuclear weapons and china could solve that problem and they're not helping us at all. >> experts say china is fed up with kim jong-un. they are tired of his nuclear tests and other provocations. they're angry with him for not telling them about those tests beforehand, and the chinese are punishing him. the chinese have just suspended coal imports from north korea, cutting off a major source of

cash for kim jong-un, but that suspension, wolf, is

happening now, intel outrage. donald trump goes even further in his refusal to accept the cia's findings on russian hacking, prompting new pushback by fellow republicans and the clinton campaign. tonight, new information as to why u.s. intelligence officers suspect the hackers tried to help trump win the election. putin's pal. sources say trump is electing to choose exxonmobil chief rex tillerson to become america's top diplomat. but some members of trump's party is spoiling for a fight, citing his ties to the russian president. nuclear warning. rising tension as china has an unprecedented show of fo