Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, on Sunday demanded to know what President Trump was doing to eliminate the nuclear threat posed by North Korea after a false ballistic missile warning was sent to residents of her home state Saturday.
“We’ve got to get to the underlying issue here of why are the people of Hawaii and this country facing a nuclear threat coming from North Korea today and what is this president doing urgently to eliminate that threat?” Gabbard told CNN.
While Gabbard acknowledged a systems failure led to the false alarm, she also urged the Trump administration to dispense with preconditions for diplomatic conversations between envoys from the U.S. and North Korea.
She also encouraged the Trump White House to better understand why the rogue nation’s dictator “has developed and is holding on so tightly to these nuclear weapons.”
“I’ve been calling on President Trump to directly negotiate with North Korea, to sit across the table from Kim Jong Un, work out the differences so that we can build a pathway toward denuclearization,” Gabbard said.
Hawaii residents woke up Saturday morning to a message on their mobile phones and televisions warning of an “inbound” ballistic missile threat.
“Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill,” the emergency alert read.
But within minutes, Gabbard had sent out a tweet to say officials confirmed to her that there was no missile threat.
“I think ‘traumatic’ understates the experience the people of Hawaii went through yesterday,” Gabbard said Sunday as she recounted how her constituents reacted to the false alarm, including parents choosing which child to spend their alleged last moments with.
