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Post by Admin on Dec 6, 2022 18:31:55 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jan 15, 2023 21:16:19 GMT
In his first year in office, Donald Trump suggested striking North Korea with a nuclear weapon and blaming it on someone else, according to a new section of a book obtained by NBC News.
The revelation was made in a new afterword to the book "Donald Trump v. The United States" by New York Times Washington correspondent Michael Schmidt, due to be released on Tuesday.
Trump made the alleged comments behind closed doors in 2017 when he publicly warned North Korea that it would "be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen" if it continued to make threats.
The then-president also routinely took to Twitter to taunt North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, who he had nicknamed "Rocket Man."
The book suggests that John Kelly, who had started as Trump's White House Chief of Staff in July 2017, was alarmed by the president's attitude towards the East Asian nation.
"What scared Kelly even more than the tweets was 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," the new section of the book says.
Kelly tried to reason with Trump and explain why this would be a bad idea, according to the book.
"It'd be tough to not have the finger pointed at us," Kelly reportedly told him.
Kelly had the country's top military leaders brief Trump about the implications if war were to break out with North Korea and how many people could be killed, but this had "no impact on Trump," according to the book.
He also tried to point out the economic repercussions of war, but the book notes that this argument only held Trump's attention briefly.
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," the book said.
Schmidt wrote that Trump's White House aides were worried North Korea could be listening into to Trump's conversation on unsecured phones and get wind of the president's potential intent to use military force.
"Kelly would have to remind Trump that he could not share classified information with his friends," Schmidt wrote, reported NBC.
The president was also reportedly "baffled and annoyed" by Kelly's warning that Trump would need congressional approval for a preemptive strike.
Despite Trump's stern words about North Korea publicly and privately, the former president formed what he described as a "very good relationship" with Kim and called letters the North Korean dictator wrote him "love letters."
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Post by Admin on Jan 25, 2023 22:23:41 GMT
Over the past several months, the leading Republican presidential candidate has launched a series of racist attacks on the wife of the Republican Party’s Senate leader, a woman who once served in his Cabinet.
But while former President Donald Trump’s taunts at Elaine Chao — demeaning her as “Coco Chow” or a variation of Mitch McConnell’s “China-loving wife” — have been mostly met with silence from fellow GOP officials, the main target of them is now speaking out.
“When I was young, some people deliberately misspelled or mispronounced my name. Asian Americans have worked hard to change that experience for the next generation,” Chao said in a statement to POLITICO. “He doesn’t seem to understand that, which says a whole lot more about him than it will ever say about Asian Americans.”
On at least a half a dozen occasions, Trump has taken to his social media platform, Truth Social, to criticize McConnell’s leadership, and to suggest, among other things, that he is conflicted because of his wife’s connection to China. Last fall, in a message widely viewed by Republicans and Democrats as a threat, he said that McConnell “has a DEATH WISH.”
But the personal attacks on Chao have stood out above the others, both for their overt racism and the relatively little pushback they’ve received. McConnell and his team have not responded. And on the rare occasion where she has been asked about them, Chao has pleaded for reporters to not amplify the remarks. Other Republicans have dismissed the attacks as Trump just being Trump. The former president “likes to give people nicknames,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said in October on CNN.
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Post by Admin on Feb 15, 2023 20:08:14 GMT
Speaking with Ellis, who was a senior legal adviser to Trump before she launched her radio show and podcast, Trump talked about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' possible presidential run before referencing a comment Haley made in 2021 about how she "would not run if President Trump ran." (When asked about the comment by Fox News in January, Haley backtracked and called for a "new generational change.") "To me, loyalty is a very important word but you can look at Nikki Haley...She said 'I would never run against our president,'" Trump said. "[Haley and DeSantis] have to do what they have to do. It's okay." Trump also mentioned loyalty when going into detail about how he said he helped DeSantis during the fellow Republican's gubernatorial campaign. "I just let people know, because I believe in loyalty, that he was at like 3 percent [in the polls]. He was dead in politics. He was never going to be in office. He was getting ready to leave the race, then he came over and asked whether or not it would be possible for me to endorse him," Trump said. "For whatever reason, I did endorse him, and he ended up going up like a rocket ship, and he won that election."
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Post by Admin on Feb 18, 2023 20:49:57 GMT
Former President Donald Trump announced early Saturday morning that he will not call Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) “Meatball Ron” following reports that he used the insulting nickname privately. “I will never call Ron DeSanctimonious ‘Meatball’ Ron, as the Fake News is insisting I will,” he said on conservative social media site Truth Social. “Meatball Ron,” as The New York Times reported Trump has described the governor in casual conversations, is apparently a dig at DeSantis’ appearance and Italian heritage. Dismissing the nickname did not stop the former president from criticizing DeSantis’ tenure as governor, however, as a potential presidential primary battle is on the horizon. Trump has also used “Shutdown Ron” to describe DeSantis, referring to his response to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the Times. “His beaches and State were closed for long periods of time, his testing, testing, testing for the China Virus didn’t work out too well, and his loyalty skills are really weak,” Trump said in his Saturday post. DeSantis is seen as the leading challenger to Trump for the GOP presidential nomination. While DeSantis has not yet announced whether he will officially enter the race, polls generally show him and Trump in close competition. Trump has lobbed a number of attacks at the Florida governor in recent months. Earlier this month, the former president promoted a social media post alleging DeSantis was “grooming high school girls with alcohol” as a teacher when he was in his 20s. That follows reports that he partied with former students at a Georgia private school 20 years ago. DeSantis derided Trump’s posts as a smear. Trump announced his campaign for a second term in November, and has usually referred to DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious.” Trump famously uses derogatory nicknames for his political opponents.
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