Trump slams Obama over N Korea policy
US President Donald Trump has said if he "wasn't elected, there would have been a war” and has once again claimed his predecessor and former US President Barack Obama was close to launching a war with North Korea. Trump sought to bolster his claim by implying that Obama had "essentially" told him so directly.
"If I wasn't elected, you'd be in a war," he said.
"President Obama thought you had to go to war. You know how close he was to pressing the trigger," Trump said at a solo press conference here on Wednesday, adding that "not thousands... (But millions of people would have been killed" in what "could have been a world war", he added.
Flaunting his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, Trump on Wednesday drew reference to a new "extraordinary letter" that he received from Kim.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head to Pyongyang to lay the groundwork for another meeting between the two leaders, he announced.
Obama’s dealings with North Korea have not been portrayed as a failure by Trump for the first time.
Trump, on earlier occasions also has implied the previous administration was on the precipice of war to boost public perceptions about his own quest for a diplomatic resolution with Pyongyang.
A week after his summit with Kim in Singapore, the US president had suggested the media would have named Obama a "national hero" if he too had "gotten along" with Pyongyang.
