Dan Bongino

The guy grew up during the Cold War.

He hates nuclear weapons.

He says that, forget global warming, I'm concerned about nuclear warming.

So nuclear weapons are a big deal to him.

Remember, President Obama left him a note when he came into office the first time.

His big overriding concern was the nuclear weapon threat from North Korea.

So by the time we get to fall of 2017, President Trump's sitting in an opioid meeting and he says, North Korea, if you don't knock it off, I'm going to bring fire and fury like you've never seen before.

The world has never seen is what he promised.

And guess what happened after that?

He mitigated the nuclear threat from North Korea.

The nuclear testing dropped.

He opened up historic diplomacy with Kim Jong-un.

The media was freaking out during that entire sequence.

And the president kept his cool and he pursued it anyway.

There were later reports, Dan, that President Trump threatened to bomb Moscow.

He told Vladimir Putin that he was ready to bomb the capital city of Russia to get them to behave.

And I've heard that actually from other sources, too, that the president actually made that threat.

So he makes these threats because, as you point out, he's making a maximalist claim.

He's doing it in the service of a high stakes negotiation.

And he always tacks to a negotiated middle.