TRUMP LAYS DOWN THE LAW – AT 1:18 P.M. ET:  Secretary State Tillerson said yesterday that the U.S. has several lines of communication open with the North Koreans.  Now the president is very publicly telling the secretary not to waste his time.   Is the president real, or is this a little bit of the good cop/bad cop routine.  From Fox: 

President Trump on Sunday sounded a war drum over North Korean leader Kim Jong Un refusing to de-escalate his nuclear weapons program, telling Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to stop wasting time negotiating with Kim because the U.S. “will do what needs to be done.”

“I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,” tweeted Trump, using his nickname for Kim. “Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"

Trump, a prolific tweeter, has been on a twitter tear this weekend, with nearly two dozen tweets since Saturday morning, most slamming San Juan Puerto Rico Mayor Yulin Cruz, a Democrat, for being critical of the administration’s hurricane response effort on the U.S. island.

On Sunday, Trump returned to Kim and his pursuit of a nuclear arsenal, despite more U.S. and international economic sanctions that reportedly are having a severe impact on the rogue nation’s economy.

Trump and Kim have for months engaged in an escalating war of words, as North Korea appears to be conducting numerous underground nuclear bomb tests and launching intercontinental missiles,in an attempt to land a nuclear warhead on another country.

COMMENT:  Meanwhile, the U.S. is reported to be building its forces in the Korean peninsula area.  My own hunch is that Trump's tough talk is an attempt to add to the sanctions, to make sure the Norks understand that we have military options that we are willing to use.

It might be very good psychological warfare.  We won't know for a time.

October 1, 2017