WASHINGTON — (CNN) President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed his former campaign rival, Hillary Clinton, and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, for the North Korean nuclear crisis.
“After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes,” Trump tweeted.
Trump was apparently referring to Clinton’s criticism of his United Nations address on Tuesday night during an appearance on CBS’s “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert.
Clinton hit Trump for being “dark” and “dangerous” about the message he presented, adding he should approach the tension with North Korea with diplomacy.
“I thought it was very dark, dangerous, not the kind of message that the leader of the greatest nation of the world should be delivering,” she said. “While of course, when you face dangerous situations, like what is happening in North Korea, to make it clear, your first approach should always be diplomatic.”
She continued: “What I hope the President would have said was something along the lines of, ‘Well we view this as dangerous to our allies, to the region, and even to our country. We call on all nations to work with us to try to end the threat posed by Kim Jong Un.’ And not call him ‘Rocket Man,’ the old Elton John song, but to say, clearly, ‘We will not tolerate any attacks on our friends or ourselves.’”
In 1994, the Clinton administration announced the Agreed Framework with North Korea, which provided for a nuclear-free peninsula in exchange for massive amounts of energy assistance from the United States. The Bush administration initially came out with a hardline stance toward the nation before softening its approach — including removing the nation from its list of state sponsors of terror in 2008 — in exchange for access to North Korea’s nuclear facilities.
The Obama administration also tried diplomacy, and North Korea agreed to halt its nuclear missile program in 2012 in exchange for food aid.
Ultimately, however, none of these actions succeeded in getting the rogue nation to end its nuclear program.
Trump delivered Tuesday a doomsday warning to North Korea in his UN address and mocked its young leader. He warned the US would “totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies, adding that while the US has “great strength and patience,” its options could soon run out.
Directly putting the country’s leader on notice, Trump suggested Kim Jong Un could not survive an American attack.
“Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself,” he said.
The-CNN-Wire ™ & © 2017 Cable News Network, Inc., a Time Warner Company. All rights reserved. (PHOTO: CNN)
