Entire US Senate called to White House for North Korea briefing

Adjust Comment Print

White House spokesman Sean Spicer announced the meeting at a news briefing Monday, and said it was set up by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., not the White House.

US lawmakers want to emerge from briefings by the Trump administration on North Korea on Wednesday with something many think has been absent from the White House so far: a clear strategy for dealing with a major national security threat.

The same four officials will later go to Capitol Hill to brief the entire House of Representatives at 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT).

"The job of being the White House press secretary is hard enough without having people that are supposed to be on your team criticizing you and undermining you in public", he said.

During a meeting with foreign ambassadors who sit on the United Nations Security Council, Trump answered questions about his goals in Syria and North Korea - but declined to offer specific terms for U.S. intervention in either country, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

Japan's envoy on North Korea, Kenji Kanasugi, said after talks with his US and South Korean counterparts that they all agreed China should take a concrete role to resolve the crisis and it could use an oil embargo as a tool to press the North.

USA officials have expressed mounting concern over North Korea's nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack the United States and its Asian allies. His most recent call was made just before meeting the ambassadors on Monday morning to German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss the "urgent security challenge" posed by North Korea, according to the White House.

"North Korea is looking for trouble", the president tweeted this month.

America's Pacific forces commander, Admiral Harry Harris Jr., told Congress on Wednesday the system would be operational within days.

On Tuesday, a missile-armed USA submarine arrived in South Korea, on its way to join the other warships.

"If it flies, it will die", Harris said. However, a US pre-emptive attack isn't likely, according to American officials.

Trump has said that Xi is applying pressure on North Korea to not engage in further provocations.

She praised China's increased pressure on North Korea.

Donald Trump govt to announce major tax reforms in U.S. next week
Team Trump wants his the tax plan to focus more on rate cuts than decreasing the deficit, The Wall Street Journal reported . The top tax rate for individuals would be cut from 39.6 percent to the "mid-30s", the official said .

The U.S. government has not specified where the carrier strike group is but U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said on Saturday it would arrive "within days".

"China is the key to this", Sen.

Albright said countries like Russian Federation and China would be eager to fill any leadership void vacated by the United States.

"They'll print what they want anyways, so we may as well have fun", a White House employee reportedly told the conservative activist in Ben Schreckinger and Hadas Gold's account of the administration's misinformation games.

Trump has vowed to prevent North Korea from being able to hit the United States with a nuclear missile and has said all options are on the table, including a military strike, although officials say tougher sanctions are the preferred route.

"The reality of today again proves the decision to strengthen nuclear power in quality and quantity under the banner of pursuing economic development and nuclear power was the correct one", the unidentified spokesman said in a statement issued by the North's state media.

A flurry of military activity, by North Korea and the US and its partners on and around the divided Korean Peninsula, has added to the world's sense of alert.

North Korea's state-run newspaper the Rodong Sinmun declared the country's armed forces were ready to show their strength by sinking the carrier "with a single strike".

"We can not comment on anything that Mr. Kim may be alleged to have done that is not related to his teaching work on the PUST campus", the university said in a statement Sunday.

A navy destroyer, the USS Wayne Meyer, began maritime exercises Tuesday with a South Korean destroyer in the Yellow Sea, west of the Korean Peninsula. Harris said the USA has "a lot of pre-emptive options", but he declined to provide specifics in an open setting.

China opposes the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense system, or THAAD, being installed in South Korea.

Withholding money, the ambassadors said, "undermines essential United Nations activities that promote core American interests and values", deprives the USA of the moral authority to demand critical reform within the United Nations bureaucracy, and "costs us more over the long term".

Klug reported from Seoul, South Korea.

Comments