Trump: We Face A North Korean Threat Because Clinton, Obama, And Others Failed

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Ryan Pickrell

President Donald Trump warned Friday night that the U.S. must find a way to stop North Korea because “we can’t have mad men out there shooting rockets all over the place.”

“Rocket man should have been handled a long time ago,” the president said at a rally in Alabama, appearing to suggest that past American presidents — Bill Clinton, George Bush, and Barack Obama — should have dealt with the North Korea threat before it got to this point. Trump has also called out Hillary Clinton in response to her criticisms of his North Korea policy, accusing her of failing to act as Secretary of State while North Korea developed nuclear weapons.

Clinton tried to pay the regime in exchange for a nuclear freeze while North Korea secretly processed nuclear material, Bush labeled North Korea part of the axis of evil damaging relations beyond repair, and Obama pursued a policy of strategic patience while North Korea conducted four nuclear tests and dozens of missile tests.

Trump did not identify Bush by name; rather, he said that he wouldn’t mention the Republican. Under Bush, North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon, although the weapon was limited in its explosive power.

North Korea has twice successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile, fired intermediate-range ballistic missiles over Japan, and tested a suspected hydrogen bomb. The North Korean foreign minister suggested Thursday that the rogue regime, in response to Trump’s threat to “totally destroy” North Korea at the United Nations General Assembly, might detonate a staged thermonuclear weapon in the Pacific.

“I’m sure he’s listening,” Trump said Friday of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who personally responded to the president’s U.N. speech, threatening to rein in Trump “with fire.”

“Maybe something gets worked out and maybe it doesn’t,” Trump explained.

Earlier Friday, the president called Kim a madman, vowing to take the young dictator to task.

Trump and Kim are locked in a battle, a war of words, with each holding nuclear weapons capable of killing millions of people. The threat is becoming more alarming with each rhetorical exchange.

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