The nominee to be the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea appeared to contradict Trump on Thursday when he was asked whether he thought North Korea still posed a nuclear threat to the homeland.
“We have to continue to worry about that,” retired Adm. Harry Harris told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee during his nomination hearing, according to CNN.
Trump declared victory on Wednesday shortly after returning to the U.S. from his trip to Singapore for his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, claiming the rogue nation was no longer a nuclear danger.
“Just landed — a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea,” Trump tweeted Wednesday.
“Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea,” he continued. “President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer — sleep well tonight!”
Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer – sleep well tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
Harris, who most recently headed U.S. Pacific Command, also told the Senate panel on Thursday he was not sure when the U.S. should ease economic pressure on North Korea in the course its negotiations regarding denuclearization.
“I think it’s important that we maintain those sanctions until we can come to the point that we believe that Kim Jong Un is serious about the negotiations and the ultimate aim of the talks, which is to have that complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization,” Harris added.
This is not the first time Harris has expressed concerns about the Hermit Kingdom’s capacity for nuclear warfare.
He told the House Armed Services Committee in February he believes Kim is pursuing nuclear weapons to eventually reunify the Korean Peninsula under his communist regime.
“I do think that there is a prevailing view that [Kim] is doing the things that he is doing to safeguard his regime. I don’t ascribe to that view,” Harris said at the time. “I do think that he is after reunification under a single communist system, so he is after what his grandfather failed to do and his father failed to do.”
