Responding to a question by CNN’s Dana Bash about whether President Donald Trump’s famous “fire and fury” remark was an empty threat, Haley insisted that the US has held back out of a sense of “responsibility.” But now that diplomatic solutions appear to be dwindling, she would be “perfectly happy” handing the situation off to Defense Secretary James Mattis, the source of some of the US’s harshest rhetoric against North Korea. Mattis, Haley said, would “take care of it.”
“What we’re doing is being responsible where North Korea is being irresponsible and reckless. We were being responsible by trying to use every diplomatic possibility that we could possibly do. We’ve pretty much exhausted all the things that we could do at the Security Council at this point.”
“I said yesterday I’m perfectly happy kicking this over to General Mattis because he has plenty of military options. So, I think that the fire and fury - while he said this is what we can do to North Korea - we want to be responsible and go through all diplomatic means to get their attention first. If that doesn’t work, General Mattis will take care of it.”
At least one member of the Trump administration, former chief strategist...
