Today's national headache began with this Trump tweet:
NBC's Peter Alexander asked Trump about that tweet today at the Bedminster club in New Jersey.
"What do you mean by the military solutions or are 'locked and loaded' as it relates to North Korea?" Alexander asked.
"I think it's pretty obvious," Trump said.
"We are looking at that pretty carefully and I hope that they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said -- and what I meant is exactly what I said and the meaning of those words. Those words are very, very easy to understand."
Alexander asked if there was any progress on diplomatic back channels.
"Well, we don't want to talk about progress, we don't want to talk about back channels. We want to talk about a country that has misbehaved for many, many years, decades actually, through numerous administrations and they didn't want to take on the issue, and I have no choice but to take it on and I'm taking it on and we'll either be very, very successful quickly or we'll be very, very successful in a different way."
More word salad. Which way is that, Donny boy?
Alexnder then asked him to comment on Angela Merkel saying she sees 'no military solution' to fight with North Korea. "Why is she wrong?" he asked.
"Well, I think maybe she's speaking for Germany. Let her speak for Germany," Trump said, hastening to tell us "she's a friend of mine, a very good friend of mine. She's a friend of ivanka. She's certainly not referring to the United States, that I can tell you."
"Mr. President, you have said that you want to send a strong message to North Korea. What do you say to your critics that your rhetoric is raising the tension?" Alexander asked.
"My critics are only saying that because it's me," Trump said. (True. Because if it was anyone else, we might trust their judgement.)
"If somebody else uttered the exact same words that I have uttered, they'd say 'What a great statement, what a wonderful statement.' But I will tell you, we have tens of millions of people in this country that are so happy with what I'm saying. Because they're saying, finally we have a president that's sticking up for our nation and frankly, sticking up for our friends and our allies.
"This man will not get away with what he's doing, believe me," Trump said. "If he utters one threat in the form of an overt threat --which, by the way he has been uttering for years and his family has been uttering for years --or if he does anything with respect to guam or any place else that's an American territory or an American ally, he will truly regret it and he will regret it fast."
I feel a lot better now, knowing that a reality-TV star is on top of this and making threats. How about you?
