WASHINGTON _ A recent report by the Los Angeles Times that aides had warned President Donald Trump not to personally attack North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was a "false narrative," the president's spokeswoman said Monday.
But Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the White House press secretary, did not deny the facts of the story. The Times reported Friday that some top aides, including national security adviser H.R. McMaster, told Trump before his debut speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19 that attacking Kim Jong Un personally could escalate tensions and shut off any chance for negotiations over North Korea's nuclear missile program.
Trump ignored them. Some of the most incendiary lines from his speech _ including calling Kim "Rocket Man" on "a suicide mission" and threatening to "totally destroy" North Korea _ were not in a speech draft that several senior officials reviewed and vetted the day before the president spoke.
"The national security team was involved and engaged throughout the speech-writing process, and was very happy with the president's speech at the U.N.," Sanders told White House reporters when asked about the Times story.
Some of Trump's national security advisers believe Trump's personal jabs at the unpredictable and ruthless Kim has propelled the crisis to a new stage.
Last last week, Kim verbally retaliated, calling Trump "a mentally deranged U.S. dotard" and a "gangster."
The escalation of insults threatens to scuttle a monthslong international effort to squeeze Pyongyang's economy through sanctions designed to force Kim to the negotiating table.
Trump continued to dress down Kim over the weekend, calling the young despot "Little Rocket Man" Friday night at a campaign rally for Republican Sen. Luther Strange in Huntsville, Ala., and again on Twitter on Saturday.
