Former President Donald Trump privately discussed using a nuclear weapon against North Korea in 2017 then blame another country for the attack, according to an afterword of a book from New York Times journalist Michael Schmidt, NBC News reported.
The new afterword was published in “Donald Trump v. the United States”. The book was originally released in 2020 but is coming out Tuesday in paperback.
NBC News obtained an excerpt of the afterword ahead of the book’s release that examines Kelly’s time serving as Trump’s chief of staff. According to the excerpt Kelly was concerned about Trump’s public comments on social media about North Korea and his even more disturbing comments in private.
“What scared Kelly even more than the tweets was the fact 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,” Schmidt writes.
Kelly explained to Trump that “it would be tough to not have the finger pointed at us” and even brought in military leaders to brief Trump on the consequences of war, including how many people could be killed. But, that argument had “no impact on Trump,” Schmidt writes.
Trump appeared determined to go to war with North Korea and at one point “raised to Kelly the possibility of launching a preemptive military attack against North Korea.”
Kelly reportedly told Trump he would need congressional approval to authorize a preemptive attack which left the former president “baffled and annoyed”.
[Featured Image: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images]
