[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – Today, combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) joined CNN’s Kate Bolduan to discuss how President Trump’s repeated use of reckless and irresponsible rhetoric towards North Korea puts American servicemembers at risk – and how President Trump needs to tell the American people what the true costs of war with North Korea would be. Video of the interview is available here.
Key Excerpts:
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Duckworth: “The Joint Chiefs of Staff [said] it would take a ground invasion to truly secure North Korea’s nuclear arsenal and in that same response. They also said that … North Korea has both biological and chemical weapons. So, in order to truly secure North Korea’s arsenal, if we go to war, it would take a ground invasion of U.S. troops.”
Bolduan: “Today, he's not making fun of the North Korean leader, with the Rocket Man nicknames. He doesn’t even really seem to be threatening him that much. I mean actually the President is calling on Kim to come to the table to make a deal. Do you find this change in tone, today, encouraging?”
Duckworth: “Well, this is one day. It’s not even 24 hours. We do know that this President is completely unpredictable and [if] you look at the totality of everything that he's said on North Korea, I don't have very high hopes that he will be to maintain the discipline that he's shown in the last few hours of his trip. Frankly, everything that he has said, everything that he's tweeted so far, has endangered American lives. Both those of our men and women in uniform in the region … as well as civilians on both sides of the border.
“If you look at everything that has happened in the past ten months of this President's tenure in office, everything has ratcheted up … Whatever the President says today, the movements that have been happening out of this administration, his rhetoric up to today, have shown that the White House is moving towards a potentially proactive strike … that’s why I want to have the very tough discussions that we have not had so far, and we certainly didn’t have running up to the Iraq war, on what the costs of this war will be. And when we’ve had these discussions, the American people then would get the transparency that they deserve.
“Listen, I’m no dove. If going to war with North Korea is what we need to do, to protect America, then I will support it. But we deserve to know what that is going to cost.”
