Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is predicting war with North Korea if the status quo remains unaltered.
“We headed toward a war if things don’t change,” Graham told CNN Tuesday night.
The defense hardliner and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee said “every test puts them closer” to an all-out war with the United States.
“If we have to go to war to stop this, we will,” he said. “And if there’s a war with North Korea, it’ll be because North Korea brought it on itself.”
Graham was responding the North Korea’s latest missile launch Tuesday, which military experts believe to have been a long-range ICBM. When speaking to reporters Tuesday afternoon, President Donald Trump did not indicate any imminent military action, saying only that the latest provocation “is a situation that we will handle.”
But Graham suggested these words needed to be understood by North Korea, saying Trump would not tolerate any further escalation in North Korea’s plan to become a nuclear power.
“My hope is that North Korea will realize that he is serious about this,” Graham told CNN. “The president is not going to allow North Korea to have a nuclear weapon in their hands that can hit America with an ICBM that can make it to the United States.”