Trump delegated defense secretary authority to shoot down North Korean ICBM, Woodward book reveals

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Trump delegated defense secretary authority to shoot down North Korean ICBM, Woodward book reveals

Published: 16 Oct. 2024, 13:47 Updated: 16 Oct. 2024, 13:49

Bob Woodward sits at the head table during the White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington in 2017 [AP/YONHAP]

Former President Donald Trump had delegated to his defense secretary the authority to shoot down a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) during his time in office if it threatened the United States, according to a U.S. journalist's new book released Tuesday.

In the book War, Bob Woodward revealed that Trump had delegated the authority to then-Defense Secretary James Mattis, underscoring the Pentagon chief's concerns about the potential escalation of tensions with Pyongyang.

"Former Secretary of Defense James Mattis had been so worried that Trump would have a nuclear war with North Korea during his watch that he had slept in gym clothes. Ready in an emergency to join a secure call, a National Event Conference, to deal with the threat," Woodward wrote.

"If North Korea launched an ICBM, Trump had delegated the authority to the secretary of defense to shoot down a missile that threatened the United States," he added.

The journalist recalled Trump telling him, "If he shoots, he shoots," in reference to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

"This cavalier attitude about nuclear weapons and impulsive, combative diplomacy terrified Trump's national security advisers," Woodward said.

He also said that Mattis privately went to a cathedral in Washington to pray and prepare himself for the possibility of having to use nuclear weapons against North Korea to defend the U.S.

Touching on his interviews with Trump in 2020, Woodward said that Trump "boasted" about his affinity for strongmen like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, and gave him "love letters" from North Korean leader Kim.

In a 2019 interview at the White House, Woodward said that on one side of Trump's office, there was a binder of letters Trump had exchanged with Kim, and that on the other side were large photos of Trump standing next to Kim shaking his hand and smiling.

The journalist also explained a classified report that Director of the Central Intelligence Agency William Burns presented to President Joe Biden after his trip to China in June this year.

In the report, Burns noted that "the increasingly strong defense partnership between Russia and North Korea unsettled the Chinese to some extent because it emboldened Kim Jong-un."

Woodward said the Chinese were concerned that the partnership could make Kim "more reckless," especially if Kim felt he was not receiving enough attention.

On the North's missile program, he said Pyongyang still depended on sourcing materials from outside North Korea. But the North's nuclear program was largely homegrown and no longer depended on outside support or technology, he said.

"Kim did not yet have the capability to efficiently and accurately deploy a nuclear weapon on an intercontinental ballistic missile to reach the U.S., but he was getting closer," Woodward wrote.

"It had been a focus for Kim in recent years. That's part of the risk with the Russia-North Korea defense partnership. Burns assessed the flow of weapons supplies and capabilities could flow both ways."

On the possibility of a North Korean nuclear attack on the U.S., Woodward cited Burns as reporting that "logically and rationally," Kim would not do it.

"But just having that capacity to do it is really troubling," Burns wrote.

Yonhap