Rep. Trent Franks defended the Trump administration's policy towards North Korea, telling CNN's "New Day" on Monday that Pyongyang's defiance of the U.S. since the president's "fire and fury" speech is not a failure of Donald Trump, but reflects mistakes made by previous Democratic presidents.
When asked where is the success of Trump's deterrence from his belligerent talk, because since those remarks, North Korea has fired at least two missiles over Japan for the first time in many years and tested perhaps its most powerful nuclear device ever, the Arizona Republican said "This is a kind of a brinksmanship situation."
Franks, who is a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said "The reality is that North Korea has been paying attention," because previously Pyongyang made deals with former Presidents Bill Clinton on the nuclear front and Barack Obama on their missile capability in which they "gained tremendous compensation without having to dismantle their capability. And then they watched the Iran nuclear deal and, in that case, there was incredible compensation given."
The congressman stressed based on those experiences, "North Korea is hoping to somehow bluff their way into greater compensation," although "that, right now, they don't want to fight the United States, but that capability exists."
Franks insisted that "Our imperative objective must be to dismantle the North Korean capability. We have to do that, and I think that this president may be the one to do it. It's unfortunate that we find ourselves in this situation as we do right now. It represents a failed policy in the past."
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