Donald Trump offered to attack North Korea with a nuclear weapon in meetings with aides and said the United States could blame the attack on another country, according to a book about his presidency.
Mr. Trump reportedly made the remarks in 2017, his first year in office, when he was particularly belligerent in his public comments on North Korea, warning Mr. Kim in August of that year not to threaten the United States. United as they would. be “met fire and fury such as the world has never seen”.
The following month, in his first speech at the United Nations, Trump redoubled his efforts by telling the North Korean dictator that he “totally destroyed” his country and mocking him as “little rocket man”.
White House officials, led by Mr Trump’s recently appointed chief of staff, John Kelly, were reportedly much more concerned that the president’s talks in private were also threatening.
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In an afterword to be added to his 2020 book Donald Trump V. America, Michael Schmidt writes that Mr. Trump threatened North Korea on social media in the days after Kelly took office. .
In the new section of the book, due out next week, the New York Times Washington correspondent adds: “What scared Kelly even more than the tweets was the fact that behind closed doors in the office oval, Trump continued to talk as if he wanted to go to war. He cavalierly discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea, saying that if he took such a step, the administration could blaming someone else to absolve oneself of responsibility.
Mr Schmidt also told Sky News’ US partner NBC News that “behind closed doors in front of his aides, Trump would speak cavalierly about the use of force against North Korea, and there were deep concerns to this topic because Trump was publicly saying things that signaled the potential for military conflict.”
After Mr. Trump suggested a subterfuge to cover up the origin of the attack, Kelly, a four-star general who many saw as a moderating force on the president during his 19 months in office, stressed that “it would be difficult to not have a finger pointed at us,” according to the book.
Mr. Trump continued to escalate the tension in 2018 over North Korea, tweeting to Kim Jong Un: “I have a nuclear button, but it’s a much bigger and more powerful button than his, and my button works!”
The following year, however, he became the first US president to meet his North Korean counterpart at a summit in Korea’s Demilitarized Zone.
