Former Defense Secretary William Cohen said Wednesday that North Korea saw President Donald Trump's statements Tuesday "as a bluff — and now you have them escalating the rhetoric" with talk about a plan for possibly striking Guam.
"Now, we have two schoolyard bullies, saying: 'I've got a bigger gun than you've got, or my gun is more nuclear than what you have,'" Cohen, the former Maine Republican senator who served in the Clinton administration, told Anderson Cooper on CNN.
"This is something that has to be calmed down."
He praised Secretary of State Rex Tillerson for his statement saying "Americans should sleep well at night" and called for strong economic sanctions against Pyongyang.
"We have to put the pressure on the North Koreans by doing what needs to be done — and that's squeezing them economically far more than we've ever done before."
Cohen also credited Trump for last weekend's U.N. Security Council resolution that slapped tough sanctions on North Korea, which was backed by China, Russia, Japan and South Korea.
"But don't undercut it with improvisations and off-the-cuff statements, which are only going to undercut it," Cohen said.
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