ABC News correspondent suggests Trump basically threatened to commit 'war crime' against North Korea - Washington Examiner

President Trump's remarks on North Korea during his Tuesday speech at the U.N. General Assembly aren't sitting well with some in the media.

ABC News chief foreign correspondent Terry Moran, for example, believes the president came very close to threatening genocide.

"But the words ‘totally destroy' a nation of 25 million people, that borders on the threat of committing a war crime," Moran said Tuesday, referencing the president's speech.

Trump's remarks could also be "potential justification" for preventive war against North Korea, Moran warned.

Here's what Trump said: "No one has shown more contempt for other nations and for the well-being of their own people than the depraved regime in North Korea. It is responsible for the starvation deaths of millions of North Koreans, and for the imprisonment, torture, killing, and oppression of countless more."

The president went on, addressing North Korea's persistent pursuit of nuclear weapons.

"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea. Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime," Trump said. "The United States is ready, willing, and able. But hopefully, this will not be necessary."

Moran isn't alone in being discomforted by the president's remarks. The ABC News foreign correspondent is joined by many of his colleagues in the news industry.

However, their collective discomfort may be unnecessary.

First, this isn't the first time that a U.S. president has casually reminded the world that the America can, in fact, erase the Hermit Kingdom from the map.

"We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals," former President Barack Obama said last year in an interview with CBS News. "But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, [South] Korea."

Secondly, it's worth mentioning that Trump's tone on Tuesday matched the general tenor of North Korea's own over-the-top agitprop. There may be a reason for this.

If you're at all familiar with the Hermit Kingdom's threats to its neighbors and the West, its winding, theatric, and oftentimes hilarious attempts at intimidation, then you probably recognized traces of that same sort of flouncing in Trump's remarks before the U.N.

Trump's comments on North Korea clearly weren't written with well-mannered envoys in mind. But you know who understands and responds to that of threatening bluster? North Korea's gout-ridden despot king, Kim Jong Un.

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