United States President Donald Trump put himself in yet another ripe position to draw the ire of the public. The businessman-turned-country-leader was recently reported to have shared secret information to the President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.
Donald Trump tells about U.S. naval presence in the waters of North Korea
This was according to a call transcript made public by the New York Times which discussed, among other things, the recent show of force just the off the coast of North Korea.
Apparently, USS Carl Vinson, an aircraft carrier, joined the nuclear submarine USS Michigan in the waters just off the coast of the Korean landmass.
The latter was docked on South Korean waters since April.
In the call, Trump was saying that a major conflict with North Korea is becoming more likely because of the country's ongoing nuclear weapons programs. The said has "vowed" to strike at the U.S. mainland with a missile armed with a nuclear warhead, supposedly "to counter aggression."
President Trump said that while the two of the United States' best naval craft were on-point and at the ready, he still wishes to solve the situation diplomatically.
Trump: prone to mishandling state secrets?
However, many still believe that this does not resolve his "unnecessary bragging," sharing that the U.S.
has "the best [submarine] in the world" positioned at a potential adversary. In the same call with Philippine President Duterte, he even added that the U.S. "has a lot of firepower there," referring to Korea.
The transcript made public by the New York Times was confirmed to be an accurate representation of the call that took place between the two leaders. However, the senior Trump administrator who confirmed the transcript's authenticity wished to remain anonymous as he did not have the authority to discuss the matter publicly.
This is not the first instance that United States President Donald Trump shared supposed state secrets to other leaders he come into contact with. It was reported that he discussed prime intel about the Islamic State with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. This is according to anonymous sources among Trump's senior officials, as well.
In addition to sharing of naval presence, Donald Trump also praised the President Duterte for his "unbelievable" operation against the drug problem in the Philippines.
This is the same operation that drew much criticism from most of the West, what with over 9,000 people killed, about 33% of which were due to self-defense.