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Do You Believe Trump Will Use Military Force Against North Korea? Nearly All Americans Already Do.

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And Americans Are Increasingly Worried About North Korea as a Nuclear Threat

As President Trump departed Washington Friday for his first extended overseas trip, the longest trip to Asia by an American president in more than a quarter century, administration officials say that he is seeking assistance in the region for help to pressure North Korea to stand down from a nuclear crisis. He is scheduled to visit Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines from Friday returning to Washington on November 14.

Trump will fly on Friday to Hawaii, stopping for a briefing on U.S. military forces in the Pacific and a visit to Pearl Harbor. The president is scheduled to visit Japan and South Korea in search of a united front against North Korea before going to Beijing, where he will push Chinese President Xi Jinping to get tougher with Pyongyang.

Trump’s trip, however, comes as a new Pew Research Center survey finds an overwhelming majority (84%) of Americans fear that the president is “really willing to use military force against North Korea.”  Much of these factors are based on the public’s perception that North Korea’s capability and its willingness to use nuclear weapons against the United States has been increased by the escalating tensions between Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

During a recent interview with Fox News Channel as reported by Reuters, Trump was asked if he planned to be tough on China over thorny issues including trade, intellectual property theft, and subsidies.

“You have to understand something – very important,” he responded. “We have a problem called North Korea.”

Trump said Chinese President Xi Jinping “has been pretty terrific” in cutting Pyongyang off from banking and oil systems. He added that Japan had reason to be worried about North Korea and alluded to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign for a military buildup against that threat.

“Well, you know Japan is a warrior nation,” he said. “I tell China and I tell everyone else that, listen, you’re going to have yourself a big problem with Japan pretty soon if you allow this to continue with North Korea.”

According to the Pew survey, about seven out of ten Americans (71%) say the U.S. should take North Korea’s nuclear threats “very seriously,” up from 56% in 2013. And more say North Korea is capable of reaching the U.S. with a nuclear missile – and is “really willing” to follow through on threats to use nuclear weapons against the U.S. – than did so four years ago.

Pew also noted substantial majorities in both parties – and across all demographic categories – say Donald Trump is willing to use military force against North Korea. Nearly nine in ten Republicans (88%) say Trump is “really willing” to use military force, as do 83% of Democrats. 

By contrast, there are deep partisan differences in confidence in Trump’s ability to handle the situation with North Korea. Among the public overall, 39% say they are very or somewhat confident in Trump’s handling of this situation, 13% are not too confident, and 46% are not at all confident.

Fully 80% of Republicans and Republican leaners say they are at least somewhat confident in Trump’s ability to handle the situation in North Korea, compared with just 9% of Democrats and Democratic leaners. 

Reporting by Brody Levesque for NCRM, & Reuters

Brody Levesque is the Chief Political Correspondent for The New Civil Rights Movement.
You may contact Brody at Brody.Levesque@thenewcivilrightsmovement.com

To comment on this article and other NCRM content, visit our Facebook page.

Image: DoD photo by Army Sgt. Amber I. Smith via Flickr 

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Project 2025 Is the Trump Agenda, Republicans Are Gleefully Declaring

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Donald Trump and his presidential campaign have repeatedly denied any connection to Project 2025, a radical blueprint created by the far-right Heritage Foundation to entirely rebuild the executive branch of the federal government on a Christian nationalist foundation. But now that the election is over and Trump has won the White House, several far-right influencers allege that Project 2025 is Trump’s agenda.

Project 2025 is so toxic its creator, Paul Dans, was eliminated from the project. Public opinion gives Project 2025 a single-digit approval rating, according to NBC News:

“It was the least popular of all the subjects tested in the September NBC News poll — a battery that included socialism, capitalism, both presidential and vice presidential candidates, the Republican and Democratic parties, Taylor Swift and Elon Musk.”

The Project 2025 blueprint, a 900-page “manifesto,” according to The Guardian, “describes an America poisoned by ‘wokeness’ and overtaken by lawlessness and chaos, where conservatives need to seize power immediately – and for as long as possible – to right a sinking ship.”

READ MORE: Day One: Trump Planning ‘Largest Mass Deportation Operation’

Project 2025 would effectively make abortion and contraception extremely difficult to obtain, would make pornography illegal, and elevate Christian nationalism throughout the government. It would eliminate the Dept. of Education. It would create a massive forced deportation program, removing possibly millions of undocumented immigrants from the U.S. And it would reduce efforts to improve diversity, while restricting and reducing LGBTQ rights and protections.

“Republicans are now comfortable openly admitting that Project 2025 was the plan all along,” Rolling Stone reports after Trump won the election. “Sure enough, less than 24 hours after the election was called for Trump, his allies, advisers, and prominent supporters were celebrating the now-open road to Project 2025’s implementation.”

Mother Jones notes that after Trump won the White House, some of his “favorite fans finally felt comfortable joking about what the next president has long denied: Project 2025 has always been the plan for a second Trump term.”

READ MORE: The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

Matt Walsh, the far-right podcaster with millions of followers on several platforms, wrote: “Now that the election is over I think we can finally say that yeah actually Project 2025 is the agenda. Lol.”

The New Republic reports, “Project 2025 has begun. And Donald Trump’s allies are now openly celebrating it.”

“Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who was recently released from prison, responded on his live War Room podcast with one word: ‘Fabulous,'” TNR added. “Later during the livestream, Bannon could be seen holding a hard copy of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 ‘Mandate For Leadership’ up to the camera in celebration. On election night, Bannon had vowed to eliminate Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, MSNBC, and the Justice Department in an unhinged rant.”

“Now, you’re going to pay the price,” Bannon said.

READ MORE: ‘Be the Guardrails of Democracy’: Liz Cheney and Other Never-Trumpers Suggest Path Forward

 

 

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Day One: Trump Planning ‘Largest Mass Deportation Operation’

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Donald Trump has called immigrants “animals,” “monsters,” and “murderers,” and said they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He falsely claimed they are responsible for a “surge in crime,” because “it’s in their genes,” and claimed they’re “eating the pets.”

Trump, now the president-elect, reportedly plans to conduct a massive deportation operation of undocumented immigrants on his first day in office.

“The American people delivered a resounding victory for President Trump, and it gives him a mandate to govern as he campaigned, to deliver on the promises that he made,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s national press secretary, told Fox News Wednesday, Newsweek reports. “Which include, on Day 1, launching the largest mass deportation operation of illegal immigrants that Kamala Harris has allowed into this country.”

Axios reports Leavitt says that “mass deportation operation” includes “millions of undocumented immigrants.”

READ MORE: The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

Back in September, Trump infamously had attacked President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and immigrants.

“What they have done to our country by allowing these millions and millions of people to come into our country,” Trump said. “And look at what’s happening to the towns all over the United States. And a lot of towns don’t want to talk — not going to be Aurora or Springfield. A lot of towns don’t want to talk about it because they’re so embarrassed by it. In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”

That same month Trump called for “remigration,” the forceful deportation of immigrants, including those in the U.S. under lawful and unlawful circumstances. He vowed to “end the migrant invasion of America,” and falsely characterized some programs that allow legal entry to the U.S. under law.

READ MORE: ‘Be the Guardrails of Democracy’: Liz Cheney and Other Never-Trumpers Suggest Path Forward

“We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).”

Remigration, as NCRM reported at the time, is advocated by some in the European far-right, nationalist, and fascist movements.

Marine Le Pen, the French far-right nationalist who promotes anti-immigration and anti-Islam positions, viewed remigration as so extreme she broke with her allies over it. Earlier this year Politico Europe reported Le Pen said “that she was in ‘total disagreement’ with the reported discussions on ‘remigration.’” Those discussions included the forced deportation of some French citizens, who were described as “unassimilated citizens.”

The Washington Post reports Trump “has made 41 distinct promises for his first day in office, including mass deportations and banning transgender women from sports.”

READ MORE: Trump Closes Campaign With Misogynistic Slur, Violent Rhetoric Against Women

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The List of Who Donald Trump Has ‘Pledged to Punish,’ According to One of His Targets

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Vice President Kamala Harris, now the former Democratic presidential nominee, frequently said on the campaign trail: “On day one if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemy’s list. When elected, I will walk in with a to do list.”

Donald Trump is now President-elect and, according to Politico, he has “a lengthy inventory of people he’s pledged to punish.”

“For years, Trump has peppered his speeches and social media posts with vengeful calls for his political opponents, his critics and members of the media to be prosecuted, locked up, deported and even executed. In the waning weeks of the 2024 campaign, he escalated those promises of retaliation to a fever pitch,” Politico reports Wednesday. “Now that he’s won, he has both a popular mandate — and the power — to begin implementing his platform of punishment.”

Trump “will be emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents broad immunity from criminal accountability after they leave office. And he is expected to be surrounded by aides more willing to dispense with norms to carry out his wishes.”

READ MORE: ‘Be the Guardrails of Democracy’: Liz Cheney and Other Never-Trumpers Suggest Path Forward

Back in March of 2023, Trump declared, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”

Who’s on his list? According to Politico, nearly two dozen individuals, largely in the legal and political spectrum, along with dozens of intelligence specialists, and unnamed journalists:

President Joe Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris
Former President Barack Obama
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi
New York Attorney General Letitia James
Manhattan Justice Arthur Engoron
Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney
Special Counsel Jack Smith
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
Former FBI Director James Comey
Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden family
Former FBI special agent Peter Strzok
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page
Rep. Adam Schiff (Now Senator-elect Schiff)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd
Rep. Jamaal Bowman
51 intelligence professionals who signed letter about Hunter Biden laptop
Members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack
Unspecified people engaged in election fraud
POLITICO reporters, editors and publisher

It’s not just Politico.

Trump has often called the mainstream media, the “enemy of the people.”

In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Trump referred to the press as, “the enemy camp,” according to The Guardian.

“Introducing his running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump said: “I told JD to go into the enemy camp. He just goes: OK. Which one? CNN? MSNBC? He’s like the only guy who looks forward to going on, and then just absolutely obliterates them.”

READ MORE: Trump Closes Campaign With Misogynistic Slur, Violent Rhetoric Against Women

 

 

 

 

 

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