NATIONAL SECURITY/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/REX TILLERSON/STATE: “Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said Wednesday [8-9-17] that ‘Americans should sleep well at night,’ free from worry that North Korea’s ever-progressing nuclear program presents an ‘imminent threat’ to the United States.
En route to Guam, the U.S. territory in the Pacific that North Korea has threatened to destroy with an ‘enveloping fire,’ Tillerson defended President Donald Trump’s warning that Pyongyang ‘best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.’
‘I think Americans should sleep well at night. I have no concerns about this particular rhetoric of the last few days. I think the president again, as commander-in-chief, I think he felt it necessary to issue a very strong statement directly to north Korea,’ Tillerson said in remarks to reporters aboard his plane. ‘But I think what the president was just reaffirming is, the United States has the capability to fully defend itself from any attack and defend our allies, and we will do so. And to the American people should sleep well tonight.’
The secretary of state said he did not reconsider rerouting his current Pacific trip away from a planned stop in Guam. He told reporters that ‘I do not believe that there is any imminent threat in my own view.’ “
-Louis Nelson, “Tillerson downplays threat posed by North Korea,” Politico, Aug. 9, 2017 10:41am