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Now, welcome to this episode of the award-winning best of the left podcast in which we shall learn about some of the more specific threats of playing with nuclear war.

Threats, it is not at all clear our president understands.

Our clips today come from counterspin, intercepted, thinking cap, who what why, packs and the Ezra Climbs Show.

There were many low lights of Donald Trump's September 19th speech at the UN, but for many the NATO was his statement that, quote,

the United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.

Rocketman is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime, close quote.

But for corporate media, the announcement of the possibility of killing 25 million people was no big deal.

For the New York Times, it was Trump showing his usual confrontational style of leadership.

The Washington Post wondered about the idea that Trump's remarks about North Korea were a break from past US policy.

Wired magazine told readers that there are two very important things to understand about North Korea in this context, neither of which is that it contains millions of human beings.

They were instead that no one has perfect insight into what Kim Jong-un thinks and that North Korea is paranoid that the United States is going to eliminate them.

Though the writer did add that, quote, in fairness, Trump's remarks may have been precisely calculated a four-dimensional chess move designed to bring about a political outcome rather than barreling toward a disastrous use of force.

And, in an article for which he was presumably paid in actual money, CNN's Chris Salisa declared Trump's UN speech, quote, in a word, Trumpian, close quote.

Recalling previous Bellacos threats, Salisa notes, quote, the promise to totally destroy an entire country seems to take things even a step further, close quote.

Of zero interest to serious journalists was the fact that countries who signed the UN Charter in 1945, as the intercepts John Schwartz reminded, are not supposed to want and let threaten use of force against other states.

And even including his phrase about the US being forced to defend itself, the rules of preemptive war require proportionality and necessity that Trump's statement do not events.

Schwartz quotes the Vice President of the European Society of International Law, who called Trump, quote, morally repugnant for treating the 25 million people of North Korea as something to be extinguished at will, close quote.

Corporate Media's Blas A attitude to genocide isn't confined to Trump, as Adam Johnson noted for fair, a week or so back, CNN's Jake Tapper conducted a Chummy interview with John McCain, in which the Arizona Senator casually declared,

quote, if Kim Jong-un acts in an aggressive fashion, the price will be extinction, close quote. Note that McCain didn't say if North Korea attacks the US, but simply if it acts in an aggressive fashion.

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