Democratic lawmakers are criticizing President Trump for unleashing heated rhetoric against Pyongyang this week, including his threat of “fire and fury” against the North Korean regime. That warning was “reckless and shows a serious lack of judgment,” said House minority whip Steny Hoyer.
“It is not a strategic or responsible response to issue wild threats of destruction,” the Maryland Democrat said in a statement. “Such behavior we’d expect to see from [Kim Jong-un] himself, not the President of the United States.”
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said that the president’s rhetoric “demonstrates weakness.”
“The president’s most recent comments are recklessly belligerent and demonstrate a grave lack of appreciation for the severity of the North Korean nuclear situation,” Pelosi said. “His saber-rattling and provocative, impulsive rhetoric erode our credibility.”
Her Senate counterpart also condemned the president’s promise.
“We need to be firm and deliberate with NK, but reckless rhetoric is not a strategy to keep America safe,” Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said on Twitter.
Trump told reporters Tuesday that “North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States,” with the warning that the Kim regime “will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.” His remarks came on the heels of a report that the country had produced a miniaturized nuclear warhead that can be placed in a missile.
New York congressman Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed Trump for “drawing an absurd red line.”
“Kim Jong-un will call his bluff as America’s adversaries watch,” Engel said.
The top Democrat on the Senate’s foreign relations committee, Ben Cardin, said on MSNBC that the remarks were “not helpful.”
Pyongyang threatened on Wednesday that it was considering a missile strike around the nearby U.S. island of Guam. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, en route to a refueling stop there after an East Asian diplomatic trip, offered a measured response.
“I do not believe that there is any imminent threat,” he said. “Americans should sleep well at night, have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days.”
Tillerson, explaining the rationale behind the president’s warning, said Trump wanted to “issue a very strong statement directly to North Korea” in terms the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, would understand.
“He doesn’t seem to understand diplomatic language,” Tillerson said of Kim.
Tillerson also doubled down on support for the administration’s diplomatic strategy.
“In fact, the pressure is starting to show. I think that’s why the rhetoric coming out of Pyongyang is beginning to become louder and more threatening,” he said.
However, Secretary of Defense James Mattis issued a stern notice to the Kim regime on Wednesday afternoon. “[North Korea] should cease any consideration of actions that would lead to the end of its regime and the destruction of its people,” he said.
The United States led a charge to slap North Korea with sanctions at the United Nations on Saturday, a move that was unanimously approved by all Security Council members, including Russia and China. The vote triggered a stream of threats from Pyongyang, which has ramped up its missile testing in recent months.
