The Russians have to be celebrating with a minimal expenditure of resources and what they have accomplished. Of course, what's unfolded now, here, the leader of the lead of the investigation about potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign has been removed. So the Russians have to consider this as another victory on the scoreboard for them.

We must remain mindful of the potential impact of over-correcting the authorizations of the intelligence community.

President Trump has the advantage of being surrounded by an excellent cadre of advisors. Kim Jong-un doesn't have any advisors that are going to give him objective counsel. He's surrounded by medal-bedecked sycophants, who dutifully follow him around like puppy dogs with their notebooks open, ascribing his every utterance, and pushing back against the great leader is not a way to get ahead.

We have lots of challenges around the world, and I have no doubt the intelligence community will continue to watch them, monitor them, and report on them. The issue is, with all of our other distractions here in Washington, particularly, will the appropriate attention be paid to each one of these issues?

When I visited North Korea in November 2014, is that Kim Jong-un is not merely the head of state of the DPRK - the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, North Korea - he's also their deity. So, when you insult him as the head of state, you're also insulting the deity, which of course the regime plays to a fare-thee-well to the domestic audience there.

The president sets the tone. He creates the atmosphere, and that can be enlightened, progressive, or it can be intimidating, depending on what the president's agenda is. I think the other dimension of this that I worry about is impacts overseas with friends and allies, many of whom are very, very concerned about America's position in the world and whether or not it's going to continue its leadership, which has been the prevalent condition since World War II.

If we - particularly, if we peremptorily attack North Korea - that without deliberation, that North Korea will reflexively unleash all the rocketry and artillery - which they're pretty good at, by the way - on Seoul, and do as they vowed many times, to convert Seoul into a sea of fire. So, if we do something like this, this will have cataclysmic results.