U.S. Lawmakers Want Assurance Trump Won't Rashly Use Nukes.
BLITZER: As North Korea threatens nuclear attacks on the United States, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Bob Corker, held an extraordinary hearing today, the first in more than 40 years to examine the president's powers to order nuclear attack. Senator Corker says a number of members, both on and off the committee, have raised serious questions about that issue. Listen to what Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy had to say.</s>SEN. CHRIS MURPHY, (D), CONNECTICUT: We are concerned that the president of the United States is so unstable, is so volatile, has a decision-making process that quixotic that he might order a nuclear weapon strike that is wildly out of step with U.S. national security interests.</s>BLITZER: Very strong words. With us now to discuss, Tony Blinken, our CNN global affairs analyst, former state deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration as well. What's your reaction to Senator Murphy's very strong remarks?</s>TONY BLINKEN, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIR ANALYST: Wolf, this is extraordinary. Because, as you said at the top, this is the first time in more than 40 years Congress has held a hearing on the question of the president's authority and command to use nuclear weapons. And there's a reason this hearing is happening now. It's because of concerns that the president acts erratically, particularly with his tweets, and that is sending all sorts of messages around the world that are potentially the source of miscalculation. If someone like a North Korea thinks that on the basis of something the president tweets that he may be prepared to use nuclear weapons -- and by the way, they don't have the ability to detect incoming nuclear weapons -- that could produce an unintended conflict. So that's the basis for this hearing. Now we have institutions and process that is should be able to withstand any individual.</s>BLITZER: Including the president.</s>BLINKEN: Including the president. But I think Senator Corker, Chairman Corker is right to hold this hearing to try to get a grip on this and to see if anything needs to be done. Now, there's also a larger question that goes beyond any particular president, including President Trump, which, is should the president have the authority to basically launch, on his own decision, without consultation of Congress, a first strike without there's no imminent danger or threat to the United States. That's a larger question that goes beyond the question of President Trump.</s>BLITZER: Another sensitive issue has come up, and the president responding to it, the relationship he now seems to have with the president, President Duterte, of Philippines. In defending his policy, the president's policy, took a serious jab at the previous administration you're very familiar with. Listen to the president.</s>TRUMP: In the Philippines, we just could not have been greeted nicer. And as you know, we were having a lot of problems with the Philippines. The relationship over the past administration was horrible. To use a nice word, I would say horrible is putting it mildly. You know what happened. Many of you were there.</s>BLITZER: I want to you react to that. The relationship with the Philippines during the eight years of the Obama administration, he says, were horrible.</s>BLINKEN: Actually, the relationship was excellent and getting very, very strong. Then President Duterte came in, launched this war on drugs that has now featured, by Amnesty International's county, tens of thousands of extrajudicial killings. Even the government of the Philippines itself acknowledges about 3,000. And that really soured the relationship. Because President Obama criticized Duterte for the way he's conducting this war on drugs. President Trump, unfortunately, seems more at home with autocrats than with Democrats. And the idea that he's cozier with President Duterte than he is with his own predecessor and, indeed, is criticizing his predecessor on foreign soil, is really unfortunate. The other thing, Wolf, is this sends a terrible message of impunity to Duterte to continue prosecuting this war on drugs without any regard for basic standards of rule of law. And it sends a message around the world that we are OK with this kind of conduct.</s>BLITZER: Because the White House says that the issue of human rights did briefly come up in the president's meeting with President Duterte, the Philippine government says it never came up.</s>BLINKEN: I suspect the president said to Duterte, you're right, that's was probably the extent of the discussion of human rights. So, look, this is -- the president has said previously that he applauded the way that President Duterte was conducting his war on drugs. He has embraced him. And this is part of a larger pattern. Unfortunately, the president, again, seems to be very comfortable with autocrats around the world and much less comfortable with Democrats.</s>BLITZER: He did seem to get a major achievement in convincing the Chinese leader, President Xi, to go ahead release the three UCLA basketball players, who were accused by the Chinese of shoplifting. Potentially, they could have faced many years in a Chinese prison, a labor camp. But they are on their way home right now.</s>BLINKEN: Yes.</s>BLITZER: And the president is taking some credit for that.</s>BLINKEN: Yes, that's good news. President was right to do it. Glad that he did it. Good that he got the result. It would have been good as well if he had a few words for the many Chinese, unfortunately, who are feeling the heavy hand of repression in China. Including, for example, the widow of the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize and was put in jail by China. So you have to get that piece of it right, too. The larger question here, Wolf, is, in China, we saw two presidents heading in different directions. Xi Jinping, whose power is at a maximum, his own law is enshrined now in the Chinese Communist Party's constitution, and President Trump, as you said earlier, opinion polls showing him with lowest ratings ever. And both of them are heading in different directions in terms of where they are taking their countries. China is opening to the world. President Trump is closing in. That's going to put China in a much stronger position and us in a weaker position.</s>BLITZER: He says he's improved this relationship with China and we'll see some dramatic results. And he says there will be a speech he'll be delivering in the next --</s>BLINKEN: I look forward to that.</s>BLITZER: Making some major announcements as well. We'll see what he does. All right, Tony, thanks very much for coming in.</s>BLINKEN: Thanks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: That's it for me. Thanks very much for watching. I'll be back 5:00 p.m. eastern in the "THE SITUATION ROOM." In the meantime, the news continues right now, right here on CNN.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.