In an attempted show of strength, the Donald Trump administration announced last week that the United States Military would be sending an aircraft carrier to the Sea of Japan as a warning to North Korea. When it was revealed that the aircraft was headed in the opposite direction, the White House had a lot of clarification and explaining to do.
Spicer's clash
Earlier this month, President Donald Trump decided to respond to the recent chemical attacked ordered by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on his own people by striking an airbase in Syria with 59 tomahawk cruise missiles.
Just a week later, the United States military dropped the largest non-nuclear bomb in history, known as the "Mother Of All Bombs," on the Islamic State (ISIS) in Afghanistan. In response, North Korea used the latest attacks as a reason to continue their nuclear weapons testing, which resulted in a failed test launch last week. North Korean officials have also pushed back at Trump, with the vice foreign minister warning the president about his threatening Twitter messages. The Trump administration allegedly sent the aforementioned aircraft carrier to the Sean of Japan, but the latest reports indicate that it's actually traveling to the Sunda Strait located in Indonesia. This issue was discussed during a heated exchange at a press briefing on April 19.
While taking questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was forced to explain the administration's recent blunder. "The president said we have an armada that is going toward the peninsula," Spicer noted, before claiming, "that's a fact" and that "it is happening." A reporter then pushed back at Spicer's remarks, appearing to ignore them, stating that when the United States is caught making comments that aren't accurate, other nations "can interpret that as a false encouragement." When asked how the Donald Trump administration was going to explain to South Korea about the mix up, the press secretary appeared to get frustrated with the line of questioning.
WH says it wasn't being misleading when it incorrectly said aircraft was heading to Japan https://t.co/hf04KSeCZH pic.twitter.com/QPvf340oLb
— The Hill (@thehill) April 19, 2017
Spicer's claim
"It is headed to the Korean Peninsula," Sean Spicer said. After the reporter pointed out that the aircraft carrier "wasn't headed their last week," Spicer continued to fire back.
"That's not what we said," Spicer responded. "It was heading there! It was heading there!" he repeated, before noting, "It is heading there." As of press time, no further explanation has been given by the White House over the issue at hand.
