A senior Republican senator says he emerged from a dinner meeting with Donald Trump confident the president will not allow North Korea to build a nuclear- tipped missile capable of striking the United States.
"If I were North Korea, I would not underestimate President Trump's resolve to stop them from getting a missile to hit our homeland," Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters today.
Graham joined Senator John McCain of Arizona for the dinner at the White House last evening. Graham and McCain are defense hawks and have been two of Trump's sharpest GOP critics on foreign policy matters. But both senators are backing Trump's approach on North Korea, which has threatened to use pre-emptive strikes or any other measures it deems necessary to defend itself against the "US imperialists."
The Trump administration has warned that all options, including a military strike, are on the table to block North Korea from developing a nuclear-tipped missile that could reach the US mainland. But a pre-emptive strike against North Korea's nuclear and missile facilities isn't likely. The Trump administration is instead seeking to put pressure on North Korea with the help of China.
Graham said it's uncertain whether North Korea may actually launch a weapon of mass destruction at the U.S. But, he said, Trump "is not going to allow this problem to get any worse than it is today." The key, Graham added, is to make North Korea realize there's a "new sheriff in town."
McCain, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, declined to discuss the specifics of the meeting with the president. But he said the Trump administration's tough talk of defusing North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs is justified.
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