Speaking before a dinner with military leaders and their
spouses on Thursday night, President Trump said that the gathering may
represent “the calm before the storm.” The comment occurred at the White House
State Dining Room before a group of reporters.
Bloomberg
reports that the president asks the reporters, “You guys know what this
represents? Maybe it’s the calm before the storm.”
When asked what he meant, President Trump answered, “You’ll
find out.”
Earlier in the day, Mr. Trump had said that his
Administration was focused on “challenges that we really should have taken care
of a long time ago, like North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan, ISIS, and the
revisionist powers that threaten our interests all around the world.”
At that point, the president made what seemed to be a
warning to North Korea. “We cannot allow this dictatorship to threaten our
nation or our allies with unimaginable loss of life,” Trump said. “We will do
what we must do to prevent that from happening. And it will be done, if
necessary -- believe me.”
The president’s comments may be the latest in a series of
attempts to convince the North Korean regime that Trump is unhinged. Over the
past few months, President Trump has engaged in a rhetorical war of words with
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un in which the two men seemingly try to one-up
each other’s martial boasts. Over the weekend, President Trump
tweeted that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was “wasting his time trying
to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” Trump’s nickname for the North Korean
leader.
Axios
recently reported that President Trump had urged his staff to portray him as “crazy”
as a negotiating tactic with South Korea. According to the report, Trump told
diplomats pressing for a renegotiation of the US trade pact with South Korea, “This
guy's so crazy he could pull out any minute.”
The tactic appears to have worked with the South Koreans. On
Thursday, South Korea agreed to amend
the trade deal.
Originally published
on The Resurgent
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