Ex-acting CIA chief: Trump is making North Korea situation worse

President Donald Trump would be best served to simply ignore the provocations of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, a former acting director of the CIA said Friday, and is “making it worse” by replying with a show of force.

Kim has moved his repressive, communist state to the top of the president’s international priority list in recent weeks, first with a missile test and now with preparations consistent with the test of a nuclear weapon. North Korea was a main point of discussion during the president’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week, and last weekend Trump ordered the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and its accompanying battle group into the waters off the Korean peninsula.


“We have a new president and Kim Jong Un is trying to challenge him, is trying to get him back to the negotiating table,” former CIA acting Director Mike Morell said Friday on “CBS This Morning,” praising former President Barack Obama for largely ignoring the North Korean regime’s efforts at saber rattling. “Kim Jong Un wants to get back to a situation where we give them gifts when they do something bad. And then we are also making it worse, right? With our bluster and by sending aircraft carriers in there, we’re raising the crisis.”

"It's best to just ignore this guy and to deter him from ever using these weapons or selling them and to build our defenses," said Morell, who also served as deputy CIA director, continued. Morell was a vocal opponent of Trump's during the 2016 presidential election and publicly supported Hillary Clinton.

Beyond deploying an aircraft carrier to the region, Trump has turned up the heat on his rhetoric toward North Korea as well. Both in his meetings with Xi and in public, the president has sought to pressure China, North Korea’s principle international benefactor, into corralling the Kim regime. If China will not, Trump has said, “we will solve the problem without them.”

And on Thursday, after news broke that the U.S. had dropped one of its largest non-nuclear weapons on an Islamic State target in Afghanistan, Trump told reporters that “I don't know if this sends a message” to North Korea, adding that “it doesn't make any difference if it does or not.”

“North Korea is a problem,” he continued. “The problem will be taken care of.”

North Korea, for its part, has responded with its typical bellicose rhetoric, warning in a statement to CNN that “we will make the U.S. fully accountable for the catastrophic consequences that may be brought about by its high-handed and outrageous acts.” In an interview with The Associated Press, North Korea’s vice foreign minister said his nation is prepared for war with the U.S. should it come to that.

"We've got a powerful nuclear deterrent already in our hands, and we certainly will not keep our arms crossed in the face of a U.S. preemptive strike," he said. "Whatever comes from the U.S., we will cope with it. We are fully prepared to handle it."

