As president, Trump was known for his "bromance" with North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, holding two summits in Singapore and Hanoi and engaging in a "love letter" correspondence with him that he took with him to Mar-A-Lago after he left office. But before that, journalist Zach Dorfman reminds us, Trump came perilously close to unleashing a nuclear strike on the country--an attack that, then Secretary of Defense feared, would "incinerate a couple of million people." In a SpyTalk podcast, Dorfman also talks about how, under Trump's "maximum pressure" campaign on the country, the Pentagon and CIA updated ambitious-- and somewhat quixotic-- plans for regime change. Which Trump will guide U.S. policy should he return to the Oval Office: The peacenik who tried to engage Kim in diplomacy or the MAGA warrior who once threatened North Korea "with fire and fury" unlike the world has ever seen? As Dorfman points out, it's a pressing question given that, with North Korea's accelerated missile tests and a growing alliance with Vladimir Putin's Russia, including sending equipment and troops to Ukraine, some scholars believe the threat of a conflict on the Korean Peninsula is greater than it has been in years.  

Zach Dorfman
https://twitter.com/zachsdorfman
Inside the Trump Admin’s Secret Battle Plans for North Korea
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-north-korea-secret-battle-plans-nuclear-war-1235132893/

Follow Jeff Stein on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/SpyTalker

Follow Karen Greenberg on Twitter
https://x.com/KarenGreenberg3

Follow Michael Isikoff on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/isikoff

Follow SpyTalk on Twitter:

https://twitter.com/talk_spy

Subscribe to SpyTalk on Substack

https://www.spytalk.co/

Take our listener survey where you can give us feedback.

http://survey.podtrac.com/start-survey.aspx?pubid=BffJOlI7qQcF&ver=short

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.