Donald Trump speaks during an event at his home in Mar-a-Lago on November 15. Joe Raedle/Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump privately discussed the possibility of launching a nuclear strike on North Korea and shifting the blame to another country in 2017, according to a newly released afterword to a book about the Trump administration, NBC News reported.
Driving the news: New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt’s paperback edition of Donald Trump vs. the United States, to be published next Tuesday, offers more details on the period of heightened tensions between the US and North Korea.
The big picture: The book’s afterword recounts then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly’s concern in 2017 over Trump’s frequent talk of going to war with North Korea, per NBC News.
- Trump “blithely discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea and said that if he took such action, the administration could blame someone else to acquit itself of responsibility,” Schmidt writes.
- “It would be hard not to point fingers at us,” Kelly said of Trump, according to the book.
- Kelly tried to dissuade Trump from exploring the option by explaining the economic implications of such a move. He also brought in military leaders to explain to Trump the likelihood of a US-North Korea war breaking out and the devastating consequences that could result.
- Schmidt reports that the prospect of how many people could be killed “didn’t affect Trump”.
- Trump was also “baffled and angered” that he needed congressional approval to launch a pre-emptive strike on North Korea.
What you say: “For the paperback of my book, Donald Trump vs. the U.S., I did something different than most authors and wrote a 12,000-word biography of General John Kelly, telling the story of his time as Trump’s “Chief of Staff,” Schmidt tweeted Thursday.