CNN’s Ripley: It’s Almost Like Trump Is ‘Baiting’ Kim Jong-Un to Conduct Their ‘Most Provocative Missile Test’

On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” CNN International Correspondent Will Ripley stated that it’s as if President Trump is baiting North Korea into conducting missile tests that would be more provocative than anything North Korea has done before.

Ripley said, “All of these responses, these fiery responses that we’ve seen from North Korea so far haven’t been direct quotes from Kim Jong-un. They’re his generals or lower level government officials. So, he’s putting out statements through officials in his government, and then the president of the United States is directly responding, mentioning him by name. So, either North Korea is being elevated up to the level of the United States, or the United States is being dragged down to the level of North Korea. But either way, all of a sudden, you have these two leaders of countries that are vastly different in terms of military capability, wealth, political influence, respect, and yet, they’re basically at the same level, in this tit for tat.”

He continued, “And in fact, the North Korean propaganda that I’ve seen today…the rhetoric was relatively tame by North Korean standards. They were back to their normal, threatening to turn the mainland United States into a stage for nuclear war. We’ve heard that before. Saying that President Trump and the United States is pushing towards the brink of a nuclear war, we’ve heard North Korea say that many times before. They didn’t personally insult the president. They didn’t talk anymore about this plan to launch four Hwasong-12 intermediate range missiles and put them down — fly them over Japan and put them down within 20 miles of Guam. They didn’t elaborate further on that. Although, granted, they were saying they’re putting together a plan for Kim Jong-un’s signature. But, by President Trump now saying this, it’s almost as if he’s baiting Kim Jong-un to sign the orders on that plan and have North Korea give it a go, and do what would be their most provocative missile test ever. Because he just continues to fan the flames, even when the North Korean rhetoric today didn’t seem to match the rhetoric of the president’s. You have the US president’s rhetoric more intense than what we heard today from North Korea.”

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