Rep. Tulsi Gabbard said President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should enter negotiations before another mistake leads to accidental nuclear war.<\/b>
\nRep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, said the false ballistic missile warning her constituents received Saturday underscores the importance of the United States and North Korea entering into negotiations toward denuclearization.
On CNN\u2019s \u201cState of the Union,\u201d Gabbard said calling the experience \u201ctraumatic\u201d understates what Hawaiians and visitors went through when the incorrect alert of an incoming missile, urging people to take shelter, went out to over a million cellphones throughout the state.
Gabbard said \u201cthere\u2019s no question\u201d that another accident or misunderstanding could actually lead to an accidental nuclear war. She expressed anger at the false alarm, but said it only further demonstrates that President Trump needs to address the underlying reasons that the people of Hawaii and Americans in general are facing this threat from Kim Jong Un\u2019s regime.
\u201cI\u2019ve been talking about the seriousness of this threat for years, since I came here to Congress,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I have been calling on President Trump to directly negotiate with North Korea \u2014 to sit across the table from Kim Jong Un, work out the differences, so that we can build a pathway towards denuclearization to remove this threat.\u201d
North Korea\u2019s ballistic missile and nuclear weapon development last year spread tension throughout the Pacific. The United States has been helping allies in the region, such as Japan, with increased defense capabilities.
Gabbard, a veteran and member of the House Armed Services Committee, said two things have to happen for any negotiations between the U. S. and North Korea to be successful: They have to happen without preconditions, and Americans need to understand why North Korea covets nuclear weapons in the first place.
She said Hawaiians are paying the price for decades of leaders who demanded unrealistic preconditions for negotiations. She suggested that requiring North Korea to get rid of its nuclear weapons first would constitute such a demand.
\u201cWhat would be the point of having a conversation if they get rid of their nuclear weapons?\u201d she said. \u201cThere would be nothing to talk about at that point.\u201d
Gabbard pointed out that North Korea has been developing nuclear weapons because it sees them as the only deterrent against the U. S. invading and trying to topple their government. She said this is the result of the United States\u2019 military history of changing regimes around the world.
\u201cNorth Korea is now in a position where Kim Jong Un is saying, \u2018No way, I\u2019m not going to give up these nuclear weapons,\u2019 because he doesn\u2019t see that credible message coming from the United States that we don\u2019t \u2014 we\u2019re not interested in overthrowing your government. We\u2019re interested in removing this nuclear threat from our country and the world,\u201d she said.
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