Incredibly, this wasn\u2019t the only time he reportedly proposed attacking a foreign nation and then pretending the US didn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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BY BESS LEVIN<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n JANUARY 12, 2023 (VanityFair.com)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last March, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Donald Trump<\/strong> reportedly told<\/a> a room full of Republican National Committee donors that the US should \u201cput the Chinese flag\u201d on a bunch of military planes and \u201cbomb the shit\u201d out of Russia\u2014and afterward, \u201cwe say, China did it, we didn\u2019t do it, and then they start fighting with each other, and we sit back and watch.\u201d Maybe you remember this, because it was a fucking insane thing to say. Or maybe you don\u2019t, because Trump has said and done fucking insane things on a near-daily basis for many years now. Either way, it seems that this was not a one-off, and that suggesting the US attack another country and blame it on someone else is reportedly very much the 2024 presidential candidate<\/a>\u2019s thing<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a new section of his 2020 book on Trump, as obtained<\/a> by NBC News, New York Times<\/em> correspondent Michael Schmidt<\/strong> reveals that Trump spent much of 2017 suggesting \u201cbehind closed doors in the Oval office\u201d that he wanted to attack North Korea. The then president, Schmidt writes in the soon-to-be released afterword to Donald Trump v. The United States: Inside the Struggle to Stop a President,<\/em> \u201ccavalierly discussed the idea of using a nuclear weapon against North Korea, saying that if he took such an action, the administration could blame someone else for it to absolve itself of responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For his part, John Kelly<\/strong> reportedly attempted to explain to his boss why that probably wouldn\u2019t work, noting that \u201cIt\u2019d be tough to not have the finger pointed at us,\u201d but, of course, the then White House chief of staff was using reason and logic, two things that haven\u2019t typically worked on Trump. Still, according to Schmidt, Kelly tried, bringing in \u201cthe military\u2019s top leaders to the White House to brief Trump about how war between the US and North Korea could easily break out, as well as the enormous consequences of such a conflict. But the argument about how many people could be killed had \u2018no impact on Trump.\u2019\u201d Nor did the threat of economic blowback; according to the book\u2019s update, informed of why all of this would be a very bad idea, the president would still \u201cturn back to the possibility of war, including at one point raising to Kelly the possibility of launching a preemptive military attack against North Korea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last May, less than two months after the former guy reportedly floated the idea of attacking Russia and blaming it on China, we learned<\/a> that, according to former defense secretary Mark Esper,<\/strong> Trump asked, on at least two occasions, if the military could \u201cshoot missiles into Mexico to destroy the drug labs,\u201d saying, \u201cThey don\u2019t have control of their own country.\u201d Told all the various reasons this idea was a no-go, the then president reportedly insisted that they could do it \u201cquietly,\u201d adding: \u201cno one would know it was us.\u201d Informed that, yes, people would<\/em> know it was the US, Trump apparently responded that he would simply lie and say the US didn\u2019t do it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyway, all this would maybe be neither here nor there if Trump was simply an ex-president whose patently insane and wildly dangerous notions were in the past, and no longer posed a risk to the United States\u2014but unfortunately, he\u2019s not<\/a>!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bess Levin<\/a> is a politics correspondent at Vanity Fair.<\/em> An essential voice of our current tragicomedy, she is an incisive, hilarious daily narrator of the horrors that never seem to stop. If you need catharsis in these terrifying times\u2014or even if you don\u2019t!\u2014she is a must-read. You can follow her… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n (Contributed by Gwyllm Llwydd)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Incredibly, this wasn\u2019t the only time he reportedly proposed attacking a foreign nation and then pretending the US didn\u2019t do it. BY BESS LEVIN JANUARY 12, 2023 (VanityFair.com) Last March, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, Donald Trump reportedly told a room full of Republican National Committee donors that the US should \u201cput the Chinese flag\u201d… Continue reading <\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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BESS LEVIN<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
POLITICS CORRESPONDENT<\/h2>\n\n\n\n