Trump Warns North Korea That U.S. is “Locked and Loaded”

It’s more than a little frustrating that serious news has to be written about our president’s tweets—and that in 20 years, high schoolers will be studying history textbooks loaded with Trump’s sickest Twitter burns—but such is the place we find ourselves during this highly … unique presidency. One of the biggest problems with Trump’s thumb-play addiction is that he now just fires off thinly veiled threats of war at other world leaders with little to no finesse or tact (let alone input from his advisers). This morning, Trump chose to threaten North Korea using the lamest possible platform.

Military solutions are now fully in place,locked and loaded,should North Korea act unwisely. Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2017

Ignoring the fact that the military is perpetually locked and loaded, especially in South Korea where the motto is “Ready to Fight Tonight,” what exactly is Trump hoping to accomplish with this? Does he hope Kim Jong Un will now decide not to fire nuclear missiles because he assumed the American military was, before today, sitting around playing Halo and nothing else?

Trump’s tweet is a useless threat, delivered via the most unprofessional of platforms and serving no real purpose besides likely further riling up an extremely dangerous adversary. Moving beyond whether North Korea could actually manage to launch a nuclear weapon at the U.S. mainland, the country has thousands of artillery batteries aimed at Seoul that could destroy the city with little provocation.

Our president, who isn’t even that good at playing golf, is now playing with people’s lives.