Trump: I believe Obama would have gone to war with North Korea

President Trump said Friday that he believes former President Obama would have gone to war with North Korea, a claim that members of Obama’s inner circle immediately denied.

Speaking during an impromptu news conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, Trump said Obama once told him he was “so close” to launching a “big war” over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions.

“I don’t want to speak for him, but I believe he would have gone to war with North Korea,” Trump said of his predecessor. 

{mosads}Trump made the remarks after recounting a long meeting he had with Obama at the White House that took place shortly after Trump defeated Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the presidential election, in which Obama named Pyongyang as Washington’s greatest foreign policy challenge.

Ben Rhodes, who served as deputy national security adviser under Obama, tweeted after Trump spoke that “we were not on the brink of war with North Korea in 2016.”

“Highlighting the longstanding and widely known threat of North Korea’s nuclear program is very different from saying you’re about to start a big war,” he also wrote.

We were not on the brink of war with North Korea in 2016. Highlighting the longstanding and widely known threat of North Korea’s nuclear program is very different from saying you’re about to start a big war.

— Ben Rhodes (@brhodes) February 15, 2019

Meanwhile, former CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News that “President Obama was never on the verge of starting any war with North Korea, large or small.” 

Former CIA Director John Brennan on Trump’s claim about what Obama told him, per @JesseRodriguez:

“President Obama was never on the verge of starting any war with North Korea, large or small. “

— Josh Lederman (@JoshNBCNews) February 15, 2019

Trump repeatedly touted his outreach to Kim during his Friday press conference, which was billed as an announcement on the national emergency declaration but also veered into talking about North Korea, China and trade with the United Kingdom and included verbal battles with reporters.

Trump said he had “established a very good relationship” with Kim, which he argued “has never happened before” between the North Korean and the U.S. governments.

The two men are expected to meet in Vietnam later this month for their second summit.

“I hope we have the same good luck as we had in the first summit. A lot was done in the first summit,” Trump said on Friday. “No more rockets going up, no more missiles going up, no more testing of nuclear.”

— Updated at 2:26 p.m.