Donald Trump is rewriting history.
In his latest act of political theater, Mr. Trump asserted that during Obama's tenure, the former president nearly went to war with North Korea, a nuclear-armed state on a continent which the United States has invaded multiple times, unsuccessfully. Yes, Donald Trump is rewriting history, and as we've come to expect, it has no basis in reality.
"I believe he would have gone to war with North Korea,” Donald announced during a news conference on Friday. “I think he was ready to go to war. In fact, he told me he was so close to starting a big war with North Korea." However, this wasn't the first time the president congratulated himself for allegedly saving the United States from nuclear war.
While speaking to reporters in January, Donald began crafting the narrative of his irreplaceable role. “Anybody else but me, you’d be in war right now,” he said. “And I can tell you, the previous administration would have been in war right now if that was extended. You would, right now, be in a nice, big, fat war in Asia with North Korea if I wasn’t elected president.”
Trump even incorporated this presupposition into his State of the Union address. "If I had not been elected president of the United States, we would right now, in my opinion, be in a major war with North Korea with potentially millions of people killed."
Trump allegedly gained his insight during a meeting he had with Obama in 2016. However, former Obama aides have refuted this account. Ben Rhodes, the deputy national security adviser under the Obama Administration took to Twitter following Trump's impromptu conference to deny the claim. "We were not on the brink of war with North Korea in 2016," Rhodes wrote. "Highlighting the longstanding and widely known threat of North Korea’s nuclear program is very different from saying you’re about to start a big war."
Rhodes wasn't the only administration official to discredit Donald's account. Former CIA Director John Brennan told NBC that the president never intended on going to war with North Korea.
Despite his disregard for historical accuracy, the president used Friday's announcement to boast of his “very good relationship” with Kim Jong Un. Trump is expected to meet with the Supreme Leader later this month, following a tumultuous back-and-forth between the two heads of state.
