President Donald Trump told reporters at his second full Cabinet meeting as president that his administration will be able to take care of North Korea but offered no specifics about what he plans to do.
“We will handle North Korea. We are gonna be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything,” Trump said Monday after a reporter asked him about his strategy.
North Korea, for the second time in a month, tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday. Trump responded to the test by ripping China’s leadership on Twitter.
“I am very disappointed in China,” Trump wrote over two Twitter messages. “…they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!”
Experts believe if Friday’s test would have been fired on a flatter, standard trajectory, it could have threatened cities like Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago.
Trump’s public statements about China’s role in dealing with North Korea has run the gamut, from praise for Chinese President Xi Jinping to contempt.
As the North Korea issue has festered during his administration, Trump has blamed China, believing that their proximity and close ties to the reclusive regime make them the ideal country to handle the issue.
Trump’s comments come during his second Cabinet meeting as president, and the first since he named former Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly to be his chief of staff.
Trump welcomed Kelly to the job by arguing he “will go down in terms of the position of chief of staff one of the greatest ever.” Kelly was sworn in 30 minutes before the meeting.
Unlike Trump’s last Cabinet meeting, Trump did not have his secretaries go around the room and lavish praise on him on camera. But the optics of the meeting remained compelling.
The meeting was likely the first time Attorney General Jeff Sessions came face to face with Trump since the President lashed out at his top cop for recusing himself from the investigation into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election.
Sessions sat directly across from Trump during the meeting and said nothing during the portion of the meeting that the media attended. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Defense Secretary James Mattis sat next to the President.
Trump mentioned some of his achievements after welcoming Kelly, including the booming stock market, low unemployment and business confidence, before arguing that there are some issues — namely North Korea and issues in the Middle East — that his administration needs to deal with that were “inherited from the previous administration.”
“But overall,” and upbeat Trump said, “I think we are doing incredibly well.”
