Remember when everyone was saying Trump’s tough talk would be the end of us?
New York magazine on August 9 last year:
Could Donald Trump stumble into nuclear war with North Korea?
The Chicago Tribune on December 15 last year:
Will Trump start a nuclear war with North Korea?
Australia’s own Van Badham chiming in on Twitter on January 1:
Yeah, maybe if you keep threatening them, @realDonaldTrump, they’ll respond to your threats with increasing seriousness. They don’t have reality TV in North Korea. They have no context for understanding you live in a clown show where you believe consequences can be edited out.
The New York Times on January 2:
President Trump again raised the prospect of nuclear war with North Korea … The President’s tone also generated a mix of scorn and alarm among lawmakers, diplomats and national security experts who called it juvenile and frightening for a president handling a foreign policy challenge with world-wrecking consequences.
Joy Behar taking the topic of Trump and North Korea to a new level on The View on US television’s ABC network on January 3:
He’ll blow the whole world up so that his stupid sons don’t have to go to jail.
His what? Vanity Fair on January 19:
Will Trump’s bruised ego launch a nuclear war? … a spurned Trump may feel his manhood so imperilled that he will opt for (a) pre-emptive military strike.
George Soros at the World Economic Forum on January 25:
The US is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that (North) Korea has become a nuclear power.
The Independent on January 29:
This is how nuclear war with North Korea would unfold, step by step … it is not unreasonable to consider the all-too-plausible worst-case scenario of nuclear war, when millions die from a couple of mistakes and a tweet.
Rolling Stone on February 5:
How Trump’s North Korea “options” could lead to nuclear war. The President has taken his sabre-rattling beyond Twitter — showing a real willingness to gamble with millions of lives
The South China Morning Post on March 10:
Trump is meeting Kim, so what? We may be headed for nuclear war.
Ahem. CNN on Twitter on April 21:
North Korea is suspending nuclear and missile tests and shutting a nuclear test site ahead of Trump summit.
The New York Times yesterday:
Kim Jong-un on Friday became the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korean-controlled territory, starting a historic summit meeting with the South’s president that will test Mr Kim’s willingness to bargain away his nuclear weapons. Mr Kim’s crossing of the line at the heart of the world’s most heavily armed border zone, a prospect that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago …
In praise of tough talk. American Spectator on March 8, 2013, marking the 30th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” speech:
Ronald Reagan cut through the clutter, and the moral equivalency and accommodation, and spoke loudly and boldly, with the uncompromising courage and confidence that was so uniquely Ronald Reagan. Why did Reagan say what he said? Here’s his later explanation: “Although a lot of liberal pundits jumped on my speech … and said it showed I was a rhetorical hip-shooter who was recklessly and unconsciously provoking the Soviets into war, I made the ‘evil empire’ speech and others like it with malice aforethought.”