Trumps Threat to North Korea Was Improvised

[applegrove]

https://politicalwire.com/2017/08/09/trumps-threat-north-korea-improvised/

"SNIP..........


President Trump delivered his “fire and fury” threat to North Korea “with arms folded, jaw set and eyes flitting on what appeared to be a single page of talking points set before him on the conference table at his New Jersey golf resort,” the New York Times reports.

“The piece of paper, as it turned out, was a fact sheet on the opioid crisis he had come to talk about, and his ominous warning to Pyongyang was entirely improvised… In discussions with advisers beforehand, he had not run the specific language by them.”

Jonathan Chait: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis have issued more normal-sounding statements intended to supersede the president’s improvised one… The message of this cleanup is that Trump’s statements do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. government – a reality most American political elites in both parties already recognize, but which needs to be made clear to other countries that are unaccustomed to treating their head of state like a random Twitter troll.”

............SNIP"

[jambo101]

1. I get nervous

When two ego maniacs start bluffing each other with nuclear weapons.

[lunasun]

2. No

[ginnyinWI]

3. Good.

More and more people going around him and just doing their jobs. Tillerson sounded so sane in comparison!

"Pay no attention the buffoon!"

[longship]

4. Rachel Maddow suggested this last night.

I believe Drumpf was speaking off the cuff, too.

What a way to go?

[Ms. Toad]

5. It may not have been vetted by people who appear reasonable by comparison,

but it was stolen from conservative talk shows - who have been describing how Trump ought to deal with N. Korea in very similar terms over the last couple of weeks, using very similar langauge.

He doesn't have the brains to think these things up himself, any more than he thinks up his tweets.

[VOX]

6. He probably had that one at the ready...

It's likely something he'd been muttering to himself for days. Especially with its resemblance to the Harry Truman quote.

Bannon may have helped on that, as well: "Okay, here's a line you can use..."