It was probably inevitable that Donald Trump would catapult the world onto the brink of nuclear conflict by saying something intemperate, but it still sucks nonetheless. According to a report in the New York Times, Trump’s “fire and fury” comment which dramatically escalated tensions between the United States and North Korea was… entirely improvised.
Yes indeed. Trump was addressing media at his New Jersey golf resort about the American opioid crisis when he said that North Korea would be “met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen,” which is obviously a reasonably inflammatory statement to make when nukes are on the table on both sides.
Trump puts North Korea on notice! “They’ll be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” pic.twitter.com/P7NfDM5Rou
— Newt-Trump Fan Club (@NewtTrump) August 8, 2017
According to the NYT, people familiar with the matter say that while Trump and his team anticipated that he might be asked about North Korea and they had brainstormed general responses, he “had not run the specific language by them”.
Trump’s “fire and fury” threat to North Korea was “absolutely” his own wording, a WH official tells me, not reading a Kelly script.
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) August 9, 2017
Reportedly, the language shocked a number of the president’s national team, including his new chief of staff. As per the NYT:
Neither camp advocated language like “fire and fury,” according to the people involved. Among those taken by surprise, they said, was John F. Kelly, the retired four-star Marine general who has just taken over as White House chief of staff and has been with the president at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., for his working vacation.
The NYT also reports that a person who spoke with Trump before his address said that he was in a “bellicose mood”. It’s nice that the status of the Doomsday Clock is intimately tied with the president’s mood, but there you go. Good. Great.
