Radar Online
Former President Donald Trump reportedly discussed launching a nuclear weapon against North Korea and blaming another country for the preemptive attack, RadarOnline.com has learned.
In a shocking development to come nearly two years after President Trump left office, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly has provided surprising testimony and insight into Trump’s thinking and decision-making during his sole term in the Oval Office.
According New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s upcoming new book Donald Trump v. the United States, Trump was obsessed with Kim Jong-un and North Korea when Kelly became the then-president’s chief of staff in July 2017.
“What scared Kelly even more than the tweets was the fact that behind closed doors in the Oval Office, Trump continued to talk as if he wanted to go to war,” Schmidt wrote after interviewing Kelly, Kelly’s staffers and dozens of Trump Administration officials.
“He cavalierly discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea, saying that if he took such an action, the administration could blame someone else for it to absolve itself of responsibility,” Schmidt added.
Despite Kelly purportedly telling Trump that “it’d be tough to not have the finger pointed at us” regarding the nuclear strike against North Korea, the former president would become “baffled and annoyed” and consistently “turn back to the possibility of war, including at one point raising to Kelly the possibility of launching a preemptive military attack against North Korea.”
Trump’s obsession with North Korea continued to escalate even after Kelly joined the White House, with the situation ultimately reaching a crux in January 2018 when Trump targeted Kim Jong-un on Twitter and bragged about his “Nuclear Button.”
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,’” Trump wrote at the time.
“Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
Kelly was eventually able to reel Trump in when, in the spring of 2018, he appealed to the then-president’s “narcissism” and convinced Trump that he would be seen as the “greatest salesman in the world” by successfully striking a diplomatic relationship with North Korea.
Shortly after Kelly’s suggestion, Trump began dialing back both his public rhetoric against Kim Jong-un and his private threats to launch nuclear weapons at North Korea.
Trump also met Kim Jong-un in person just a few months later in June 2018, and even became the first sitting U.S. president to enter North Korea in June 2019.
