Bob Woodward’s Trump book could freak out North Korea

North Korea probably won’t be happy with Bob Woodward’s explosive new book about the Trump presidency — and it could hurt the administration’s effort to convince North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons.

In an excerpt published on Tuesday, Woodward recounts an exchange between President Donald Trump and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis. In it, Trump calls for killing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad after his regime murdered over 80 people with chemical weapons in April 2017.

“Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump told Mattis, referring to Assad and his forces.

The president never authorized the assassination, instead choosing a more limited bombing of a Syrian airbase, and both Trump and Mattis deny that conversation ever happened.

But there’s more: Woodward also reports that Trump asked Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to come up with a plan to preemptively attack North Korea.

That’s consistent with previous reporting indicating the administration considered a so-called “bloody nose” strike, meant to compel Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons.

Experts worry that these two revelations could hurt America’s nuclear negotiations with North Korea by convincing leader Kim Jong Un that Trump would be willing to order an assassination strike against him — which is a really strong reason for Kim to hold onto his nuclear bombs and missiles.

Kim, like his father and grandfather before him, considers nukes to be the greatest deterrent to a US-led attack on North Korea, and especially attacks meant to topple the leadership.

Trump and Mattis’s Syria conversation and the preemptive strike option that Trump requested play right into North Korean fears of what America might do. As North Korea nuclear expert Vipin Narang of MIT points out above, “Kim Jong Un will never unilaterally disarm” because he wants to safeguard against such an attack.

The Trump administration’s job in ongoing nuclear talks with North Korea is to convince it that an attack will never come. Trump’s reported comments make that job much harder.

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple reasons that we can't rely only on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on.

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. We can’t do that if we have a paywall.

That’s why we also turn to you, our readers, to help us keep Vox free. If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today?

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via