Donald Trump’s own description of how he told the Chinese President Xi Jinping over dinner that he had just nearly started nuclear World War Three with Russia in a Fox Business interview with Maria Bartiromo is far more surreal than anything in “Dr Strangelove”.
Excerpts from the transcript of the interview…
Trump: I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We’re now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen and President Xi was enjoying it.
And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded, what do you do?
And we made a determination to do it, so the missiles were on the way. And I said, Mr. President, let me explain something to you. This was during dessert.
We’ve just fired 59 missiles, all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable, from, you know, hundreds of miles away, all of which hit, amazing.
…
So what happens is I said we’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq…
Bartiromo corrects Trump and says: Heading towards Syria…
Trump: Yes. Heading toward Syria. And I want you to know that, because I didn’t want him to go home. We were almost finished. It was a full day in Palm Beach. We’re almost finished and I — what does he do, finish his dessert and go home and then they say, you know, the guy you just had dinner with just attacked a country?
Bartiromo: How did he react?
Trump: So he paused for 10 seconds and then he asked the interpreter to please say it again. I didn’t think that was a good sign.
