Trump Downplays Missile, Revels in Pyongyang's Biden Insult
On Twitter, Trump said Pyongyang’s firing of some small weapons this month “disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me.”
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump downplayed a recent missile test by North Korea, a day after his national security adviser called the actions a violation of United Nations resolutions, and took a fresh swing at Democrat Joe Biden, the top 2020 Democratic contender.
On Twitter early Sunday Trump said Pyongyang’s firing of “some small weapons” this month “disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me.”
The comment was similar to one made by Trump to Politico earlier in the month, when he said of the rocket launches, “they’re short range and I don’t consider that a breach of trust at all.”
The launches “were short-range missiles and very standard stuff,” Trump said.
In an interview airing Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also said the missile launches don’t concern Trump and don’t pose a threat to the U.S. or its allies. The president is focused on his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, she said.
‘Still Feels Good’
“Some of the activity that’s taken place, as you can see from the president’s Twitter, isn’t something that’s bothering the president,” Sanders said. “He still feels good about the relationship that he has and about Chairman Kim’s commitment that he made to the president.”
Sanders also defended Trump on Saturday reveling North Korea’s slam of Biden this week -- essentially siding with a foreign dictator over a former U.S. vice president . “The president doesn’t need somebody else to give him an assessment of Joe Biden,” she said.
Pyongyang’s official news agency, KCNA, called the former vice president “an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being” and a “fool of low IQ,” after Biden called North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a tyrant.
Kim “smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan (sic) a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?” Trump said. The president later reissued the tweet to correct the spelling of Biden’s name.
As Biden has moved to the front of the Democratic pack to challenge Trump in 2020, the president has sharpened his rhetoric, including suggesting that China backed away from a trade deal with the U.S. in the hope it can negotiate with Biden instead.
Not everyone was as sanguine as Sanders about Trump’s tweet.
Representative Adam Kinziger, Republican of Illinois and a military veteran, took issue with Trump siding with Kim against Biden. “This is just plain wrong,” he said on Twitter.
Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa, another Republican, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that she “certainly wouldn’t trust” Kim.
National Security Adviser John Bolton said Saturday the U.S. still wants to restart talks with North Korea after two Trump-Kim summits have come and gone without progress on denuclearization. Speaking to reporters in Tokyo ahead of Trump’s arrival, Bolton said the launches on May 4 and May 9 were of close-range and short-range ballistic missiles.
The tests were North Korea’s most significant military operations since November 2017, when it fired an intercontinental ballistic missile that weapons experts said could hit all of the U.S. The launches cast new doubt on Trump’s effort to secure a disarmament deal with North Korea.
“UN Security Council resolutions prohibit North Korea from firing any ballistic missiles,” Bolton said. “In terms of violating UN Security Council resolutions, there’s no doubt about that.” He added that Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would talk about “making sure the integrity of the Security Council resolutions is maintained.”
Bolton said the U.S. has had little contact with North Korea since Trump’s February summit with Kim in Hanoi collapsed without a deal. He added that the U.S.’s special envoy to North Korea, Stephen Biegun, “can’t wait to talk to his North Korean counterpart, but they haven’t responded.”
Asked about Abe’s declaration that he would be ready to hold a summit with Kim without preconditions, Bolton said it “would be in North Korea’s interests to accommodate the prime minister.” Such a meeting “could well be a substantial assistance” to resolving the issue of Japanese citizens abducted by the North, as well as the missile and nuclear problems, he said.
North Korea has heaped disdain on Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for their hard-line approach, saying they have used “gangster-like” tactics. Biden, “reckless and senseless,” has now been added to that list.
The reclusive state however, has framed Trump in a positive light, saying there is a “mysteriously wonderful” chemistry between him and Kim.
Even though ballistic missile testing is banned by resolutions pushed by Trump’s administration, the U.S. has tamped down talk of discussing the violations with the Security Council, according to two Security Council diplomats who asked not to be identified. European officials suggested holding a meeting, but the U.S. wanted to wait and assess the situation, diplomats said.
North Korea test-fired in May a new solid-fuel, short-range ballistic missiles that is easier to hide, harder to strike down and capable of hitting all of South Korea, weapons experts have said.
Pressed by NBC moderator Chuck Todd on Sunday about whether there were any results of Trump’s two previous summits with Kim given the missile launches, Sanders said there was a delay in tests and the U.S. did get hostages and remains from the Korean conflict back.
To contact the reporters on this story: Isabel Reynolds in Tokyo at ireynolds1@bloomberg.net;Ros Krasny in Washington at rkrasny1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Virginia Van Natta, Mark Niquette
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