Trump warns North Korea of ‘fire and fury’ as nuke threat worsens

 BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — President Donald Trump threatened North Korea “with fire and fury like the world has never seen” on Tuesday after reports suggested the communist country has mastered one of the final hurdles to being able to strike the United States with a nuclear missile.

Trump’s stern words to the camera at his golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, sought to match the gravity of North Korea’s newfound ability to wed its nuclear warhead with its missiles, including those that may be able to hit the American mainland. The isolated and impoverished dictatorship has strived for decades to match its bombastic military rhetoric with the technical prowess to threaten the U.S. and its Asian allies, and the pace of its breakthroughs is already having far-reaching consequences for stability in the Pacific and beyond.                                                                                                                                                                                                              The nuclear advances were detailed in an official Japanese assessment and a Washington Post story that cited U.S. intelligence officials and a confidential Defense Intelligence Agency report. The U.S. now puts the North Korean arsenal at up to 60 nuclear weapons, more than double most assessments by independent experts, according to the Post’s reporting.

“North Korea had best not make any more threats to the United States,” said a stern-looking Trump, seated with his arms crossed and with his wife beside him. “They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

“He has been very threatening beyond a normal state. And as I said they will be met with fire, fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”