Posted on 10/19/2017 11:50:22 AM PDT by drewh
Interviewing former CIA Director John Brennan on Thursday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer seemed to suggest that military leaders would launch a coup d’etat against President Trump in order to prevent nuclear war with North Korea. In response, the Obama administration official didn’t discount the notion.
“Over the summer, the President said that he would unleash ‘fire and fury’ on North Korea....is this a president who doesn’t understand the gravity and the seriousness of that issue?,” Lauer asked early in the exchange. Brennan warned: “I think his comments have been rather provocative, and it has served to increase tensions, not to de-escalate them.”
Fellow co-host Savannah Guthrie fretted: “...you said at a forum last night that you thought the chances of some kind of military conflict with North Korea had now risen to either 1 in 4 or 1 in 5, so 20-25% chance that that could happen. Is that because of North Korea’s actions, because of the U.S.’s actions and rhetoric, or both?” Ranting against the President, Brennan declared:
I think it’s a combination of the two. I think the caustic and bellicose comments that are coming out of Washington, and Mr. Trump on his tweets, really has led to an escalation in tensions. And I’m concerned that there could be some type of clash between South Korean and North Korean forces that could escalate.
Following Brennan’s dire prediction, Lauer raised the possibility of Trump being physically restrained and detained in the event of a conflict:
Well, let me ask you this, and I almost feel weird asking you this, but you’ve read the same stories that I’ve read. You know the key players around the President in Mattis and in McMaster and John Kelly. The stories are going around out there that if the President inches closer to some kind of a nuclear confrontation with North Korea, that those guys are gonna do something. They’re going to lock him in a room, they’re gonna tackle him. You’re smiling, but these are the stories that are out there. And that they will prevent him from carrying out any action that would cause that. How do you – is that all nonsense?
Brennan seemed to confirm Lauer’s outlandish scenario: “No, I think the military leaders...know the risks of escalation. They know just how dangerous the situation is and I think they are governors on the President’s instincts to continue to try to intimidate and bully.”
Lauer pressed: “You’re technically not answering the question. Would they take some action to prevent the President from carrying out an order?” Brennan replied: “The President has unilateral authority to be able to authorize military action....Secretary Mattis can either try to talk him out of it, disagree with it, carry it out, or not.”
The morning show anchor touted: “Because in July you said it is the obligation of some executive branch officials to refuse to carry out some of those orders that are inconsistent with what this country is all about.” Brennan explained that he was referring to “the firing of [former FBI Director] Jim Comey,” and worried: “We are a country of laws, and sometimes I feel that Mr. Trump feels that it is Trump’s laws that trump others.”
Guthrie wondered: “If you’d been in your old job and you had been given an order that you thought was dangerous to this country, would you have flouted an order?” After saying that he would have resigned over a presidential order to resume waterboarding of terror suspects, Guthrie urged: “Do you think Mattis and Kelly and Dunford and McMaster would be willing to do the same if circumstances warrant it?”
He assured her: “They are patriots, all of them. And they understand the gravity of the situation. They understand the gravity, and I don’t believe Mr. Trump does.”
Wrapping up the softball interview, Lauer teed up Brennan to slam the President one last time: “Real quickly, based on what you know about the situation in Iran, if the President rips up that Iran nuclear deal, does he risk, in the short term, owning a nuclear Iran?” Brennan predictably agreed: “I think he runs the risk of escalated tensions in the Gulf that could redound to our detriment and to potential risk to U.S. military in the region.”
One topic that was completely ignored in the five-minute segment was the recent bombshell revelation of a Russian bribery plot being uncovered by the FBI before the Obama administration approved a nuclear deal with Moscow.
Most reporters/journalists etc. today are anything but that....more like promoters of propaganda while they sit in their chat sessions regurgitating the script they’ve been given prior to airing.
What would he have said about J.F.K., during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
As I recall, there was a lot of tough talk coming from the White House, during that scary time.
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There will be no war - just boiling North Korean rock.
“Over the summer, the President said that he would unleash ‘fire and fury’ on North Korea....is this a president who doesn’t understand the gravity and the seriousness of that issue?,” Lauer asked...
President Truman said the almost the exact same thing about Japan just before the atomic bomb was dropped. I was kind of surprise because I saw that on a PBS documentary about the Truman administration dropping the atomic bomb on Japan.
North Korea has a choice - no nuclear weapons or lots of used ones.
Dear Leader might ask the Chinese or Russians to send some trucks to take his toys away real soon.
The harvests are pretty much in over the Northern hemisphere.
I have Matt locked in my TV that I never turn on.
Worst case, we lose a leftist west coast city or two and Japan and SK lose a few of their cities. Lil’ Kim’s lifespan would be about twenty minutes from that time, and China would have to deal with the aftermath.
Do I wish it? No. Do I oppose it? No. Nothing I can say or do will affect the madman who will start the hostilities anyway.
From whom would he need to be protected? Oh, right...from those of us who believe that traitors need killing.
Brennan, Clapper and Lauer should all be locked in a dank jail cell until the end of World War VII.
Traitors, the lot of them.
“President Truman said the almost the exact same thing about Japan just before the atomic bomb was dropped.”
Actually he said it after Hiroshima was laid waste, but before the second was unleashed upon Nagasaki.
Matt would rather Kim takes out San Francisco first, then it war might be OK (If the UN agreed to it).
Japan never would have surrendered if they had known that we had used up our entire inventory of atomic bombs. It was only by convincing Japan that we would keep nuking them until the Japan was a sheet of glass that they agreed to surrender.
This just reinforces why I don’t waste my mornings watching/listening to the Today Show.
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