Donald Trump’s North Korea Comments, Explained

OK, fine, let’s write about the North Korea thing. When Donald Trump says something truly preposterous, the usual response is for someone in the White House to suggest anonymously that he didn’t really mean it. This can take many forms, and today it took this one:

Goodness. How could these morons interpret “fire and fury like the world has never seen” as a nuclear attack? He was just talking about, um, a new and improved kind of napalm. Or, you know, a really spectacular Aurora Borealis. Or a really nasty tweet. We also have this:

Ah, so this wasn’t a prepared statement after all. I thought that sounded iffy from the start. Trump was just looking at an opioid fact sheet. This explains a lot of things, as my exclusive blow-up of the document shows:

Meanwhile, Rex Tillerson is telling us that the US is totally willing to talk things over with the North Koreans: “I think the president just wanted to be clear to the North Korean regime that the U.S. has the unquestionable ability to defend itself, will defend itself and its allies, and I think it was important that he deliver that message to avoid any miscalculation on their part.”

Yeah. Trump was just trying to avoid any miscalculations. That’s the ticket.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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