Trump Refuses to Back Down, Threatens KJU After Leader Boasts About Nuclear Button
Donald Trump is at it again: The president of the United States just drove his critics crazy with a single tweet, but there may be more to the post than meets the eye.
On Tuesday evening, Trump posted a message that was directed at North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, and it may be his most controversial use of Twitter yet.
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times,'” Trump began.
“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!” the president continued.
North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the “Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.” 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!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2018
“The United States can never fight a war against me and our state,” Kim Jong Un previously declared on New Year’s Day, according to The Washington Post.
“It should properly know that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office, and this is just a reality,” the dictator insisted.
Donald Trump’s Twitter response was “liked” by over 400,000 people and “re-tweeted” over 164,000 times, as of this article’s publication.
Predictably, Trump’s critics had meltdowns — if you’ll pardon the expression — over the tweet, and even some conservatives seemed perplexed.
“This makes sense on no level,” whined Gordon Chang, a CNN pundit and Asian expert. “Of course, it makes the president of the United States look like a juvenile.”
.@GordonGChang on Pres. Trump’s “nuclear button” tweet: “This makes sense on no level … It makes the U.S. look foolish” https://t.co/7NIoJaibIf pic.twitter.com/PnMOfpZH4V
— Anderson Cooper 360° (@AC360) January 3, 2018
Conservative journalist Ben Shapiro echoed the puzzlement. “Trump had an excess of Twitter mojo he just needed to blow off after the break, guys,” the right-leaning speaker and frequent Trump critic wrote on Twitter. “Or alternatively, what in the living hell is happening.”
Other Twitter users demanded that Trump be banned from the social media platform or impeached over the tweet. At the same time, some news outlets began “fact-checking” whether or not Trump literally had a red button on his desk, apparently missing that he was speaking broadly.
In fact, the president has had nuclear launch codes and the device to deploy them with him at all times since at least the Cuban missile crisis. President John F. Kennedy referenced his “red button” during that crisis.
“I know that the red button on my desk phone will connect me with the White House Army Signal Agency switchboard and that the WHASA switchboard can connect me immediately to the Joint War Room,” Kennedy stated at the time.
The so-called “nuclear football” was also developed in that era. Also known as the “Presidential Emergency Satchel” or “the button,” the mobile device goes with the president and contains everything needed to authorize a nuclear strike in a war situation.
Despite critics like Gordon Chang claiming that Trump’s response “makes no sense,” there may actually be a certain genius to Trump’s strategy. Like all bullies, dictators like Kim Jong Un despise weakness but understand power.
We’ve already seen what decades of soft talk and complacency brings us in North Korea: instability. The entire reason the Kim regime has nuclear weapons is because the United States and the U.N. repeatedly caved and back-peddled, while pretending that soothing words would somehow fix the problem.
Intellectuals always believe that geopolitics is chess. In reality, the game may instead be poker.
What Trump has done, much to the chagrin of his opponents, is call Kim Jong Un’s bluff. The president is no stranger to high-stakes deal making, and he intuitively understands that negotiating from a position of strength is far superior to groveling.
There is also value in being perceived as a “cowboy.” If an enemy knows exactly what his adversary will do, he can always be one step ahead. An opponent who believes anything might happen, however, will tread carefully.
The left gave the same “loose cannon” label to Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. It drives media “experts” crazy, but Trump’s air of unpredictability may actually be an incredibly powerful advantage for our country.
The president has put the dictator on notice, and bluntly reminded him of the truth: America has been stockpiling weapons and training to defeat North Korea for decades. And he’s right… our weapons actually work.
If Kim really wants to play this game, he needs to know that the United States is no longer weak or demure. Trump’s message was received loud and clear in Pyongyang. They’ll never admit it, but there’s a very good chance that the “never Trump” crowd has underestimated the president once again.
H/T The Blaze
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