House Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Adam Schiff on Wednesday blasted the "erratic and fiery belligerence" of President Donald Trump's statements on North Korea, saying they "do little to defuse the situation and threaten to make a bad situation worse."
The California Democrat called on the president to allow Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley to "do their jobs without taking actions that hamper their efforts.
"There is no question that the threat posed by the North Korean regime is real and growing more dangerous each day," Schiff said in a statement posted on Twitter. "It is incumbent on the United States to do whatever is necessary to protect the nation and our allies.
"As I have said since the beginning of this administration, left unchecked, the North Koreans are likely to be able to marry their nuclear capability to an increasingly sophisticated intercontinental ballistic missile technology capable of striking the United States."
He said that while he endorsed Tillerson's position of using diplomacy with Pyongyang, "nothing can be taken off the table."
"The military option," Schiff cautioned, "would be catastrophic and involve a potentially massive loss of life — American, South Korean, Japanese, and North Korean.
"President Trump would be well to keep this in mind."
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