“We can’t tolerate that risk,” he told CBS in an interview Tuesday morning. “If North Korea has a nuclear weapon, who are you going to try to prevent getting one? Look at the regime, the hostility of this regime to the whole world.”

When asked whether Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s high profile disagreements with President Donald Trump undermines him when working overseas, McMaster said no.

“The President has made very clear that on North Korea for example, now is not the time to talk,” McMaster responded. “And what he means is, there can’t be negotiations under these current conditions … The problem is now that their programs have advanced so far we don’t have time to do that again and so we can’t repeat the failed pattern of the past.”