John McCain and Lindsey Graham have been two of President Trump’s loudest critics within the Republican party, but following a private dinner at the White House with the president Monday night, both men expressed confidence in Trump’s seriousness about addressing a major foreign policy crisis: the threat from North Korea.
“Pres @realDonaldTrump is NOT going to let the nutjob in North Korea develop a missile – with a nuclear weapon on top – that can hit the US,” Graham tweeted on Tuesday.
“North Korea was not bred by Donald Trump. North Korea was bred by failure after failure of three presidents to conclude agreements with North Korea which they said would end the problem but obviously didn’t,” McCain told reporters in the Capitol. “[Trump is] the one that’s going to have to address the failure.”
McCain added that the fact that Trump is hosting all members of the Senate at the White House Wednesday to discuss the North Korean threat shows that he grasps the seriousness of the situation. “This could be one of the greatest crises that we have faced since the Cuban Missile Crisis if—and I emphasize if—the North Koreans are capable of delivering a nuclear weapon to the coast of the United States of America,” McCain said.
What precisely Trump might do to take on North Korea remains unclear. Trump has reached out to Chinese leader Xi Jinping to pressure North Korea, but McCain said on Tuesday: “I’m very skeptical about the Chinese willingness to really rein in [North] Korea.”
Given that North Korea already has nuclear weapons, how could the United States use military force against North Korea? “It’s tough. It’s terribly tough. It’s terribly difficult. That’s why I say the significance of the crisis” is so great, McCain said. “They have artillery by the thousands at the DMZ that can strike a city with 25 million people, Seoul. That is an enormous consequence.”
Asked if there is any doubt that the North Koreans would use their nuclear weapons in response to a U.S. attack, McCain told THE WEEKLY STANDARD: “They wouldn’t use nuclear weapons. They would use the thousand artillery, conventional weapons they have in caves that they can roll out and fire. We can take them out, but they can fire the first shot.”
Why wouldn’t North Korea use nuclear weapons against South Korea? “They haven’t got them on the DMZ,” McCain replied. “The nuclear weapon would be put on an intercontinental ballistic missile that could strike the United States. That’s the challenge.”
Asked if military action in North Korea would require congressional approval, McCain said: “I think it depends on the nature of it.”
