An interview that President Donald Trump gave in 1999 on the issue of North Korea has been circulating on social media as tensions continued to rise between the United States and Pyongyang, the New York Post reported on Wednesday.
Comparisons were made with the president's statement on Tuesday after he was asked about the regime's ability to fit a miniaturized nuclear warhead on an intercontinental ballistic missile, when he said that "North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with the fire and the fury like the world has never seen."
Back in 1999 on NBC's "Meet The Press," when asked whether he would launch a pre-emptive strike against North Korea's nuclear capability at the time, Trump said, "First, I'd negotiate. I would negotiate like crazy and I'd make sure that we tried to get the best deal possible."
He explained his reasoning by adding that, "If a man walks up to you in the street … and puts a gun to your head and says, 'Give me your money,' wouldn't you rather know where he's coming from before he had the gun in his hand?"
Trump went on to say in 1999 that it would be better to solve the crisis soon rather than wait for Pyongyang to develop nuclear weapons, and then have to deal with an increased threat.
Trump also had said that if the negotiations did not work out, he would consider launching a pre-emptive strike at the North, explaining that "You wanna do it in five years, when they have warheads all over the place? Every one of them pointing to New York City, to Washington — is that when you wanna do it? Or do you want to do it now?"
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