The Latest: North Korea insults Trump’s mind, vacation
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A man walks by a TV screen showing a local news program with a file image of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, at Seoul Train Station in Seoul, South Korea, Wednesday. North Korea’s military claimed Wednesday it was examining its plans for attacking Guam. The letters read ” North Korea, Denouncing the U.N. Security Council’s sanctions.”
WASHINGTON >> The latest on President Donald Trump and North Korea (all times EDT):
11:30 p.m.
North Korea has become the latest critic of President Donald Trump’s working vacation, accusing him of acting senile while “on the golf links.”
Gen. Kim Rak Gyom, commander of the North’s strategic rocket forces, made the insults via state media Thursday in response to Trump’s “fire and fury” threats against North Korea.
Trump made the remarks during a meeting at his New Jersey golf resort.
Kim said Trump is “extremely getting on the nerves” of his soldiers by making comments that showed his “senility” again.
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Kim says “sound dialogue is not possible with such a guy bereft of reason who is going senile.”
North Korea has unleashed personal attacks on past Washington and Seoul leaders. It called former President Barack Obama a monkey and ex-South Korean President Park Geun-hye a prostitute.
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10 p.m.
South Korea’s military says North Korea will face a “stern and strong” response from Washington and Seoul if it acts on threats to fire missiles near Guam.
Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff spokesman Roh Jae-cheon said Thursday that the U.S. and South Korean militaries are prepared to “immediately and sternly punish” any kind of provocation by North Korea, but didn’t elaborate on how the allies are preparing.
South Korea’s presidential office says top national security adviser Chung Eui-yong will chair a national security council meeting in the afternoon to discuss the North Korean threats.
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6:10 p.m.
North Korea’s military says President Donald Trump’s warning of “fire and fury” if it threatens the U.S. is a “load of nonsense.”
The North is responding to Trump’s threat in a statement from its military carried by state-run news agency KCNA. The statement says that “only absolute force” can work on someone as “bereft of reason” as Trump.
The North Korean statement also says the military action its army “is about to take” will be effective for restraining America’s “frantic moves” in and near the southern part of the Korean Peninsula.
It says North Korea will complete a plan by mid-August for the “historic enveloping fire at Guam,” convey it to the commander in chief of its nuclear force and then “wait for his order.” North Korea says it will “keep closely watching the speech and behavior of the U.S.”
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2:50 p.m.
The State Department says President Donald Trump is “on the same page” with the rest of U.S. government with his fiery threat to North Korea.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert says the White House, State Department and Pentagon are all in agreement. She says the world, too, is speaking with once voice.
Nauert says the pressure by the U.S. and others on Pyongyang “is working.”
Nauert says Secretary of State Rex Tillerson spoke to Trump for about an hour after Trump warned Tuesday of “fire and fury” if North Korea escalated its threats.
