Trump wanted to nuke North Korea and blame someone else

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Behind closed doors in 2017, President Donald Trump discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and suggested he could blame a U.S. strike against the communist regime on another country, according to a new section of a book that details key events of his administration.

Trump's alleged comments, reported for the first time in a new afterword to a book by New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt, came as tensions between the U.S. and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un escalated, alarming then-White House chief of staff John Kelly.

The new section of "Donald Trump v. the United States," obtained by NBC News ahead of its publication in paperback Tuesday, offers an extensive examination of Kelly’s life and tenure as Trump's chief of staff from July 2017 to January 2019. Kelly previously was Trump's secretary of homeland security. For the account, Schmidt cites in part dozens of interviews on background with former Trump administration officials and others who worked with Kelly.

tweets. But Kelly was more concerned about what Trump was saying privately, Schmidt reports.

"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. 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," according to the new section of the book.

Kelly tried to use reason to explain to Trump why that would not work, Schmidt continues.

"It’d be tough to not have the finger pointed at us," Kelly told the president, according to the afterword.

Kelly brought the military’s top leaders to the White House to brief Trump about how war between the U.S. and North Korea could easily break out, as well as the enormous consequences of such a conflict. But the argument about how many people could be killed had "no impact on Trump," Schmidt writes.

Kelly then tried to point out that there would be economic repercussions, but the argument held Trump’s attention for only so long, according to the afterword.

Then, Trump "would 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," Schmidt said.

Kelly warned that Trump would need congressional approval for a pre-emptive strike, which "baffled and annoyed" Trump, according to the afterword.

Schmidt also writes that it was well-known among senior U.S. officials for several decades that North Korea sought to spy on U.S. decision-makers. So White House aides were alarmed "that Trump would repeatedly talk on unclassified phones, with friends and confidants outside the government, about how he wanted to use military force against North Korea."

Schmidt writes that there is no indication North Korea had a source in the White House, but he said it "was well within the realm of American intelligence assessment" that it could have been listening to Trump’s calls.

"Kelly would have to remind Trump that he could not share classified information with his friends," Schmidt writes.

According to the new section, Kelly came up with a plan he believes ultimately prompted Trump to dial back the rhetoric in spring 2018: appealing directly to Trump’s "narcissism."

Kelly convinced the president he could prove he was the "greatest salesman in the world" by trying to strike a diplomatic relationship, Schmidt writes, thereby preventing a nuclear conflict that Kelly and other top military leaders saw as a more immediate threat than most realized at the time.

I'm sure there are already MAGA cultists who deny what Kelly has revealed, insisting that Trump is the wisest of men, the Chosen One sent by God.

Only because God ran out of locusts.

..are you suggesting that he isn’t ???

Trump forgive my blasphemy.

Wow.
Working in the administration of the idiot president must have been a hell.
Wrong on so many levels... and, yeah, ultimately persuaded out of it by flattering No reason worked but simple manipulation did the job.
I'm grateful for those who continued to run the country despite him, preventing dragging the whole world to a hell.

Only because God ran out of locusts.