Gorka: Trump ‘Dissatisfied’ with China’s Response to North Korea; ‘No Options off the Table’

Deputy Adviser to the President Dr. Sebastian Gorka, formerly national security editor for Breitbart News, joined SiriusXM host Raheem Kassam on Wednesday’s Breitbart News Daily to discuss the crises in North Korea.

Gorka saw North Korea as part of the “world on fire” left by the Obama administration.

“Whichever cardinal point of the compass you look at – north, east, south, or west – whether it’s Russia, China, North Korea, ISIS, or Iran, ‘strategic patience’ created a whole slew of threats to the United States,” he said, putting North Korea at the “top of the list.”

“The president uses the phrase ‘a grave threat,’ and he’s absolutely right. The constant escalation by Pyongyang means that this is very much front and center for the whole national security establishment and for the president himself,” said Gorka.

He advised looking past the “bluster and ideology” of Kim Jong-un’s regime to “understand what they’re really doing.”

“Let’s just step back. Let’s not talk about their threats to America and just use a phrase from the Cold War, which is ‘the correlation of forces.’ Just line up their capabilities, their GDP, their military spending, and just compare it to ours, and we really do see that this is a Lilliputian regime,” he said.

“It’s not about any kind of actual conflict. What we have seen in the last 20, 25, 30 years, ever since the Clinton administration really facilitated North Korea on its current trajectory, what we have seen again and again and again is institutionalized global blackmail,” Gorka pointed out. “That is what Pyongyang is doing: trying to blackmail the Western community and America. This administration will not stand for it.”

“Let’s not talk about the dire prognostications. We don’t want to be Chicken Little. This is government-executed blackmail,” he said.

Kassam said it was troubling that many in Washington have so much trouble dealing with this “mini-menace” from Pyongyang.

“I think they’ve locked themselves into a certain pattern of behavior. They’ve painted themselves into a corner,” Gorka replied.

“Look, as we’ve said again and again and again, we don’t give our operation plans away, but the treatment of this threat absolutely, totally changed on January the 20th. The president is clear: we are not going to allow this to progress further. We had hoped that it could be dealt with through Beijing, through what we have called the program of a ‘peaceful pressure’ being exerted. That did not bear fruit. The president has made clear he is dissatisfied with China’s response to the current escalation. As a result, no options have been taken off the table,” he declared.

“The president has said he will do whatever it takes to keep America safe. It’s no more business as usual, Raheem. The bottom line is, it is not business as usual with regards to North Korea,” he told Kassam.

Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. Eastern.