North Korea's claim to have tested a hydrogen bomb is a "direct threat" to the United States if the nation has a way to deliver that weapon, GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush said on the campaign trail Wednesday.
"We haven't gotten it confirmed," the former Florida governor told reporters, according to
MSNBC's Jose Diaz-Balart. "It''s an example of a withdrawn America in the world. We need to be serious if we're going to deal with these challenges."
Further, said Bush, the United States needs to "challenge China to deal with its client state," and reimpose sanctions "across the board if it's been confirmed they are violating sanctions and testing a hydrogen bomb."
And it the claims are true, he continued, "this is a huge danger. If they have the long range missile capability to deliver that weapon, that is a direct threat to the United States.
Fellow Floridian and GOP candidate Sen. Marco Rubio also had strong views about the North Korean claims.
"We now have the news that this lunatic in North Korea has potentially tested a hydrogen bomb," said Rubio in a campaign speech, calling such a bomb "twice as powerful" as a traditional nuclear weapon.
"It's not confirmed, but here's what is confirmed: he's a lunatic," Rubio said of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. "He's dangerous and this administration has done nothing about it. Bill Clinton wanted to give speeches in North Korea a few years ago, by the way."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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