It’s just the beginning of August and sh*t has gotten very real.
The President is meant to be on vacation, except it’s not really a vacation – it’s working.
He’s at one of his golf courses, where he keeps tweeting and he is “very busy doing lots of meetings and calls”. As Seth Meyers puts it, that’s exactly how a small child would describe what an adult does in an office #briefcase.
In a press conference that was meant to be about the opioid crisis, Trump suddenly veered wildly off-script and threatened to nuke North Korea and kill us all.
The dark humour about the leader of the free world being an erratic toddler with access to the nuclear codes, until now, seemed almost as far-fetched as a man who brags about grabbing women by the pussy becoming President.
And here we are.
Like our co-founder, Mia Freedman does every time she’s freaking out, she picked up the phone to call her podcast co-host, Amelia Lester.
You can listen to the full conversation with Mia and Amelia on Tell Me It’s Going To Be OK, right here. (Post continues after audio.)
Mia: Amelia, hi. Tell me it’s going to be ok. Seriously, tell me can it be ok because it feels like it’s not.
Amelia: It feels like it’s not. I remember after Trump was elected, I’ve had this gnawing sense of anxiety. The best analogy is that it feels like the whole world is locked in a room with a toddler who has a gun. The toddler could not let off the gun. The toddler could not get around to it, they may not figure out how to do it. Or, the toddler could just pick up the gun and fire it.
Top Comments
Why can't the US launch a preemptive strike? If NK shows signs of preparing their missiles with nuclear warheads, can the US shoot? If the liquid fuelled missiles are being fuelled for launch, can they shoot? Can they shoot if the missile is launched but still in NK airspace? If the NKs take actions to prepare for nuclear missile release, I very much hope the US strikes first and saves tens of thousands of lives in South Korea, Japan, Guam, Hawaii or any other target.
China won't retaliate as they won't swap Shanghai for Pyongyang anymore than American would have swapped Boston for Berlin. If China launched against the US it would cause terrible damage to the United States but nothing like what the US would do to them in retaliation. China isn't that dumb.
Even a conventional war between China and the US would see China lose. 85% of their oil comes out of the Middle East, their fresh water supplies are from Tibet and a few large dams there and almost half of China's food, including 20% from the US and Canada, arrives by sea. The US Navy merely needs to establish a blockade from Japan to Taiwan to Singapore and China dies. China knows this as well.
Guam is a bit too close to us for my liking.
So, what is this is a feint by NK and they will actually shoot elsewhere, like Northern Aus US military bases?
It's a change from the "dog strategy". Dogs chase cars all the time but what do if they caught one? Up til now it's been, OK NK, you have a little nuke, now what's your next move?
Launching a missile at Guam, regardless if it hits, regardless if the US shoots it down en route would achieve exactly what besides the end of North Korea?
Things have changed though, Trump is more Kennedy or Reagan in drawing the nuclear line. He could easily (and possibly is) set China up by saying any nuclear launch from NK will be treated as an attack from China, just as Kennedy declared to the Soviets with Cuba.
NK is China's angry dog, China needs to bring its dog to heal.