Trump Toughens Warning on North Korea, Despite Bipartisan Criticism
President Trump refused to back down on Thursday from his provocative threat to rain down “fire and fury” on North Korea if it endangers the United States, despite bipartisan criticism — and he argued that perhaps he was not harsh enough.
“Frankly, the people who were questioning that statement, was it too tough? Maybe it wasn’t tough enough,” he told reporters. “They’ve been doing this to our country for a long time, for many years, and it’s about time that somebody stuck up for the people of this country and for the people of other countries. So if anything, maybe that statement wasn’t tough enough.”
Mr. Trump spoke at his golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he is spending much of the month on a working vacation. He was meeting on Thursday with Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, his national security adviser, and other aides even as tension with North Korea continued to crackle with nuclear-edged bombast. While his advisers have tried to modulate his original comment, made on Tuesday in response to North Korean threats, Mr. Trump suggested he had no reason to back off.
