“After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes,” President Donald Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.

| Evan Vucci/AP Trump blames Clintons for nuclear North Korea

President Donald Trump on Wednesday cast blame for the nuclear-armed North Korea that his administration faces on the Clinton family, blaming former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton for failing to disarm the regime of dictator Kim Jong Un when they had the chance.

“After allowing North Korea to research and build Nukes while Secretary of State (Bill C also), Crooked Hillary now criticizes,” the president wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning.


Months after her surprise loss in last year’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton has re-emerged over the past two weeks on a book tour to hawk her memoir of the 2016 election, entitled “What Happened.” In public and in her book, the former secretary of state has been unsparingly critical of Trump’s presidency thus far, including his handling of North Korea.

During his first address to the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump harshly criticized North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, saying "Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

Kim’s regime, always bellicose in its rhetoric, has ramped up its aggressive posture since Trump’s inauguration, launching multiple ballistic missile tests, including two recently that traveled over Japan. North Korea also recently conducted a nuclear test, detonating its most powerful device to date.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

North Korea’s tests have indicated that its missile technology has progressed to the point that it is now capable of striking the continental U.S., although it is unclear whether or not the Kim regime has yet miniaturized a nuclear warhead small enough to fit atop one of its long-range missiles. Trump has vowed that he will not allow North Korea to obtain a nuclear weapon capable of striking the U.S., pointedly refusing to take military action off the table.

North Korea and its quest for a nuclear program have posed problems for U.S. presidents of both parties going back decades, with the dynastic Kim family unwilling to surrender its nuclear program. Under former President Clinton, the U.S. and North Korea signed an agreement by which the latter would freeze its nuclear program, but that deal ultimately failed.

Under former President Barack Obama, whom Hillary Clinton served as secretary of state for four years, the U.S. adopted a policy of strategic patience, one that Trump has declared “over” since coming into office.