“I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” Trump tweeted in response to threats by North Korea.
By: World Israel News Staff
President Donald Trump responded to threats issued earlier this week by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un about his country’s nuclear abilities by stating that America’s abilities are “much bigger and more powerful.”
Kim said Monday that the US should be aware that his country’s nuclear power is now a reality.
“The US should know that the button for nuclear weapons is on my table,” Kim stated during his New Year’s address. “The entire area of the US mainland is within our nuclear strike range. … The United States can never start a war against me and our country.”
Responding to the threats on Twitter Tuesday, Trump wrote, “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!”
Trump has previously engaged in fiery verbal exchanges with Kim, derisively calling him “little rocket man” after a series of North Korean long-range missile tests.
Tensions between Washington and Pyongyang have been running high over the latter’s frequent missile launches and its nuclear test in 2017.
Nuclear war with North Korea ‘closer than ever’
Adm. Mike Mullen, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that the US is “closer to a nuclear war with North Korea” than ever, adding that he does not “see the opportunities to solve this diplomatically at this particular point.”
In an interview on ABC‘s “This Week” on Sunday, Mullen said that Trump’s rhetoric aimed at Kim indicates he would prefer to take a more aggressive approach to countering the rogue regime’s rapidly evolving nuclear weapons program.
Mullen’s warning about the possibility of war with North Korea was echoed by Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who said Sunday that 2018 could be a year of “extreme danger.”
“We’ve got a chance here to deliver some fatal blows to some really bad actors in 2018. But if we blink, God help us all,” Graham said in an interview on CBS‘s “Face the Nation.”
Last month, Graham predicted that there is a 30 percent chance Trump will order a first strike on North Korea to prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon capable of hitting the US.
“I would say there’s a three in 10 chance we use the military option,” he said in an interview with The Atlantic. If the North Koreans conduct an additional test of a nuclear bomb, “I would say 70 percent,” he said.