President Donald Trump tweeted a video Thursday of himself on cable TV nearly 20 years ago warning of the North Korean nuclear threat.
I’ve been saying it for a long, long time. #NoKo pic.twitter.com/LQl7tGhMdO
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2017
The video features then-President Bill Clinton announcing a 1994 deal with North Korea which was supposed to halt the regime’s march towards a nuclear weapon in exchange for aid. Trump then appears from a cable news segment years later decrying the Clinton administration’s decision to sign the deal and not “deal with” the situation militarily.
“You want to do it in five years when they have warheads pointed all over the place, everyone of them pointed at New York City or Washington?” then-businessman Trump asks incredulously when asked how he would respond to caution from military leaders. “Its better to do it now.”
The president’s video comes months after North Korea demonstrated the likely ability to deliver a nuclear armed intercontinental ballistic missile anywhere on the U.S. mainland, passing a strategic milestone it long sought in its nuclear program. Trump has so far sought to deter North Korea’s nuclear ambitions through international sanctions and pressure on countries like China to cease trade with the rouge regime.
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