President Donald Trump is not taunting North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un with his tweets because he is "standing up for the people of this country," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday.
"The people of this country should be concerned about the leader of North Korea," Sanders said at the daily briefing. "He's made repeated threats.
"He's tested missiles for years — and this is a president who is not going to be weak.
"He's making sure he does what he's promised to do, and that's stand up and protect the American people."
Trump boasted Tuesday on Twitter that he had a bigger and more powerful "nuclear button" than Kim did after the dictator said in his New Year's address that he had one on his office desk.
Kim also warned that "the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike."
While President Trump does not actually have a physical button on his desk, he tweeted:
Sanders told reporters Wednesday that with Kim, "what's dangerous is to ignore the continued threats.
"If the previous administration had done anything and dealt with North Korea, dealt with Iran, instead of sitting by and doing nothing, we wouldn't have to clean up their mess now."
On questions about Trump actually having a physical nuclear weapons button, Sanders said: "The president is very well aware of how the process works and the capacity of the United States.
"I can tell you it's greater than that of North Korea.
"This is a president who leads through strength — and he's going to do that," she later added. "He's going to focus on everything that he can do in order to keep America safe and he's not going to be pushed around by the leader of North Korea."
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