Will Donald Trump start a nuclear war with North Korea, as he tweet-threatened Tuesday night? Axios turned to its stable of sources for an answer and that answer appears to be a giant shrug emoji:
What they're saying: "Every war in history was an accident," said one administration insider. "You just don't know what's going to send him over the edge."
Remember all those times Hillary Clinton talked about whether Trump had the temperament to be president? Yeah. About that. Here’s an administration insider saying that Trump would start a war not because of expert advice or considered strategy but because “you just don’t know what’s going to send him over the edge.” Also, not sure that “every war in history was an accident” thing is actually true.
- As one outside adviser to the West Wing told me: "This is the most important issue on the president's desk. We are in a hair-trigger environment. And this is potentially a shooting war with nuclear risk."
- The adviser added: "What intel analysis or foreign policy advice leads to employing this as a tactic?"
Is that a rhetorical question? Pretty sure it’s the intel analysis of an ignorant narcissist with a hair-trigger temper.
Some White House sources say that “the risk of war is higher than most outsiders realize” while others “caution that the media tends to over-interpret and over-cover statements that Trump has made just to stir the pot, and with little prior thought.” Yes, that’s the optimistic view: “Hey, it’s just the president of the United States publicly threatening nuclear war with little prior thought to stir the pot.” And the pessimistic view is nuclear war. Fan-freaking-tastic.