Whatever strategic planning the Trump administration has for a North Korea with nuclear weapons capabilities, there was no preparing for the president’s comments on Tuesday. The White House, including the national-security team, was unaware President Trump was preparing to speak publicly about North Korea when he did so Tuesday at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” said Trump, his arms crossed. “They will be met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen.” Trump said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has been “very threatening beyond a normal state.”
“And as I said, they will be met with the fire and fury and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before,” Trump said.
The president was responding to a report in the Washington Post that, according to a confidential U.S. intelligence assessment presented late last month, the North Korean regime has “successfully produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can fit inside its missiles.”
Trump’s aides and staff will now be forced to fit their messaging and agenda to the president’s words. Dan Scavino, who runs the White House’s social-media operations, has already leaned into them by tweeting out a video of Trump’s comments at Bedminster.
The episode represents a change in posture: for most of Trump’s presidency, administration officials have been reluctant to respond too forcefully in public to North Korean aggression and threats. One administration source put it to me this way after a previous missile test by North Korea: there’s no upside to a war of words with the regime of Kim Jong-un, whose provocations are about seeking attention. The president, for some reason, seems to have decided otherwise.
Update, 11:32 a.m.: The White House has issued a statement from deputy press secretary Lindsay Walters. “We’ve received several questions on who the president spoke to yesterday before his notes. The president and chief of staff Kelly are and have been in constant contact with members of the NSC team,” Walters said. “And additionally the president did receive his daily intelligence briefing this morning.”
The statement notably does not deny that Trump’s aides knew he would make his statement about North Korea in Bedminster. Additionally, Glenn Thrush of the New York Times reports that Trump “improvised” his “fire and fury” line and that chief of staff John Kelly was “surprised.”
And Politico reporter Josh Dawsey has sources telling him Trump’s language on the likely U.S. response to a North Korean threat was “not carefully vetted language.” A source told Dawsey to “not read too much into it.”
Mark It Down—“Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report” – headline from the New York Times, August 7, 2017.
Here’s an update of sorts to the speculation about how Vice President Mike Pence may or may not be preparing for a presidential run in 2020 if Trump isn’t running again. Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker published some additional, and relevant, quotations from the bizarre interview he had with Anthony Scaramucci that ended Scaramucci’s short-lived run as White House communications director.
“‘Why do you think Nick’s there, bro?’ Scaramucci asked me, referring to Nick Ayers, Pence’s recently installed chief of staff. ‘Are you stupid?’ He continued, ‘Why is Nick there? Nick’s there to protect the Vice-President because the Vice-President can’t believe what the fuck is going on.’”
Job Approval Watch—President Trump tweeted Monday morning that, “phony Fake News polling” to the contrary, his base of support is “far bigger and stronger than ever before.” A new set of polls released since then will give Trump even more to complain about.
A new CNN poll finds Trump’s popularity has dropped to the lowest point of his presidency, with enthusiasm waning even among his core supporters over the last few months. The poll puts Trump’s overall approval rating at 38 percent, with 56 percent disapproving of his job performance so far. That’s down 6 percentage points from CNN’s April polling, when 44 percent approved and 54 percent disapproved of Trump’s tenure.
The numbers are getting worse among those who ought to be friendliest to Trump. Back in February—before the firing of James Comey, before the Mueller investigation, before the president’s son was busted for attempting to score damaging information on Hillary Clinton from a Russian lawyer—CNN found 73 percent of Republicans and 68 percent of conservatives strongly approved of Trump’s job performance. That number has now dropped considerably, with only 59 percent of Republicans and 48 percent of conservatives giving Trump a strong review.
The numbers aren’t all bad for the president. A CBS poll, also released Monday, shows that 69 percent of Americans feel good about the economy, which is up 5 points from June and is the highest that number’s been since 2002, while a slim plurality—46 percent to 45 percent—approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. But the same poll finds Trump’s overall approval rating unchanged from June at 36 percent, with more Americans evaluating Trump based on his behavior and values than on his economic agenda.
Meanwhile, a third independent poll from Investor’s Business Daily pegs Trump’s approval rating at a bottom-feeding 32 percent, with Republican support falling from 83 percent in July to 71 percent in August.
How’d we miss this? Politico’s Danny Vinik reports: “On Thursday, the State Department published a notice in the Federal Register soliciting comments on its proposal to begin the ‘extreme vetting’ that Trump promised in his campaign.”
Special Election Watch—Late Tuesday night, President Trump tweeted out his “complete and total endorsement” for sitting Alabama senator Luther Strange. Earlier this year, Strange was appointed to the seat held by Trump’s attorney general Jeff Sessions, but he faces a Republican primary for the December special election to fill out the remainder of Sessions’s term.
Challenging Strange in next week’s GOP primary is the former state supreme court chief justice, Roy Moore, and congressman Mo Brooks. The White House had been expected to stay out of the primary, although Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell is said to prefer Strange to Moore and Brooks. One recent poll showed Moore leading the pack, followed by Strange and then Brooks. If no candidate gets above 50 percent in the primary, the top two contenders will advance to a runoff before the December 12 special election.
My colleague Alice Lloyd has a terrific piece about a pair of conservative “tech bros” in Silicon Valley trying to connect like-minded programmers and engineers. Be sure to read the whole thing, including their interesting discussion about the interesting politics of HBO’s acclaimed comedy Silicon Valley.
Song of the Day—“Wichita Lineman” by Glen Campbell (R.I.P.)
