US President Donald Trump has upped the ante once again in a war of words with North Korea that observers worry could lead to a real war.
The President says he's drawing a line in the sand on the beaches of Guam, the American territory in the Pacific that North Korea says it plans to attack.
Mr. Trump told reporters that any attack on Guam will be met with overwhelming US force against the North Korean regime.
Our Washington Correspondent Simon Marks reports.
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The President's comments on North Korea came after a meeting with Vice President Mike Pence and National Security Adviser General HR McMaster….two of a host of top level Trump administration officials who have hot-footed it to the President's golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey in a bid to understand precisely what his holiday thinking is about North Korea.
Before that meeting there was an indication that the President had no plan to back away from his threat to bring "fire and fury" to the Korean Peninsula.
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But after the meeting….he went way, way further.
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Those comments fly in the face of attempts by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to damp down the rhetoric and the risk of war in the Korean Peninsula.
As the President was making them….State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert was trying to assure reporters there's no risk of military confrontation because America's use of diplomatic pressure is working against North Korea.
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But one of the President's advisers here in Washington, Sebastian Gorka, poured scorn on Rex Tillerson, saying the Secretary of State had no business discussing military options in North Korea.
That's further evidence of a rift ripping the Trump administration apart….just one week after we were all told new White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly was the man to bring order to chaos.
And there was more: President Trump, for the first time, commented publicly on a decision by Russian President Vladimir Putin to order the US to downscale its diplomatic presence in the country by 755 positions.
With scores of American diplomats being thrown out of Russia….would the President announce a tit-for-tat response?
You've got to be kidding.
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Shameful….unbelievable….extroardinary: the reactions of some foreign policy veterans in Washington to the President's remarks.
They have one again shown that when it comes to North Korea….he'll go toe-to-toe against Kim Jong Un.
But when it comes to Russia, he rolls over like a pussycat.
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