Trump: Presidents Obama, Clinton were ‘outplayed’ by North Korea

by Joe Concha - 04/17/17 5:01 PM ET

President Trump said his predecessors Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were “outplayed” by North Korea and that he won’t be broadcasting his plans to deal with the isolated and increasingly aggressive country.

When asked in an interview set to air on “Fox & Friends” Tuesday if a pre-emptive military strike is a possibility, as reported last week by NBC News, Trump wouldn’t elaborate.

“I don’t want to telegraph what I’m doing or what I’m thinking. I’m not like other administrations, where they say we’re going to do this in four weeks,” Trump told Fox’s Ainsley Earhardt on Monday during the White House Easter Egg Roll.

{mosads}”It doesn’t work that way. We’ll see what happens. I hope things work out well. I hope there’s going to be peace, but they’ve been talking with this gentleman for a long time,” he continued.

“You read Clinton’s book. and he said, ‘Oh, we made such a great peace deal,’ and it was a joke,” Trump said. “You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed.

They’ve all been outplayed by this gentleman,” he continued, referring to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “And we’ll see what happens. I just don’t telegraph my moves.”

Tensions on the Korean peninsula have been building over the past weeks, and a senior North Korean official said Monday the U.S. has created “a dangerous situation in which a thermonuclear war may break out at any minute.”

“[North Korea] is ready to react to any mode of war desired by the U.S.,” the country’s deputy United Nations ambassador, Kim In Ryong. said Monday in Panmunjom, according to The Associated Press.

A missile test by North Korea failed Saturday, the latest in a series of provocations. Trump has said he will pressure China to rein in North Korea’s oftentimes unpredictable leader but that the U.S. “will solve the problem without them” if need be.

The Trump interview will air during Tuesday’s edition of “Fox & Friends” on Fox News starting at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

The network says the U.S. relationship with China and the president’s immigration policy will also be discussed.

Tags Barack Obama Bill Clinton