CNN’s Tapper rails against Trump’s bizarre series of post-holiday attacks: This isn't 'acceptable' or 'stable behavior'

CNN’s Jake Tapper on Tuesday chastised Donald Trump for engaging in a series of verbal attacks on North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the U.S. Department of Justice, former political opponent Hillary Clinton and the “fake news” media in a blitz of blustering rhetoric on his first day back in Washington.

“President Trump this evening responding to the nuclear threat from North Korea in a way the world has never heard from an American president,” Tapper began. The CNN host explained that Trump—responding to news that Kim Jong-un insists the U.S. mainland is “within range” of the country’s nuclear arsenal—tweeted, “I too have a nuclear button but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works.”

“The bellicose back-and-forth comes as the joint chairman of the chief of staff warns the U.S. is further ‘with a war with North Korea than ever before’ adding, ‘he did not see this to resolve this diplomatically,’” Tapper explained.

“President Trump this evening is in a back-and-forth with Kim Jong-un about whose nuclear button is bigger and whose is more powerful,” Tapper continued. “It may be difficult for some of you at home to wrap your minds around a U.S. president who makes statements like this about nuclear weapons, which would of course murder millions of people.”

Tapper noted that Trump immediately pivoted from warning about North Korea to warning he will be “announcing the most dishonest and corrupt media awards of the year on Monday.”

“This is the President of the United States issuing a threat to use weapons and then turning around and glibly chastising the media,” Tapper said. “These tweets coming on the same day that President Trump also suggested that a former Hillary Clinton aide that has been charged with no crime should be jailed. And said the former FBI Director [James Comey], who is a witness to the investigation to the Trump campaign, should be investigated himself. And also said that his own Justice Department is part of conspiracy known as the ‘deep state.’”

“None of this normal, none of this acceptable, none of this frankly stable behavior,” Tapper added.

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