American documentary filmmaker and political commentator Michael Moore has censured President Donald Trump and the current state of US politics, calling for action as tensions escalate between Washington and Pyongyang over North Korea’s missile and nuclear programs.
"This guy's going to get us all killed. There's nobody in charge. This man (Trump) has the nuclear codes," Moore said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.
"I'm hoping somebody in the Pentagon is protecting us. Like, whatever's in that nuclear briefcase it's just some girlfriend's phone number or something. I'm just hoping that it's not the real numbers because we're in desperate shape here," he added.
The 63-year-old liberal documentarian, an outspoken critic of Trump since his election, was one of those who correctly predicted that the New York billionaire businessman would win the 2016 US presidential race.
Back in July last year, Moore argued that Trump would exploit angry white voters in his favor, and Americans are likely to support him like British citizens voted in June to leave the European Union — known as Brexit.
The filmmaker has also made a series of predictions about the end of Trump’s presidency, including that Trump will not finish his first term.
The Thursday’s comments were made as the United States and its allies in East Asia have ratcheted up their rhetoric against North Korea in the recent weeks following repeated North Korean missile tests. Tensions particularly increased with mutual threats of a military attack between Washington and Pyongyang.
Trump threatened North Korea last week with American “fire and fury,” and later doubled down on his threat, saying the military option against North Korea was “locked and loaded.” North Korea also reacted by preparing a plan to fire missiles at an area near the American Pacific territory of Guam, which is about 3,200 kilometers from the North Korean capital.
While North Korea later “postponed” that missile strike, the exchange of threats with the US significantly raised fears of an imminent war on the Korean Peninsula.
Tensions over North Korea escalated in July, when Pyongyang twice successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of targeting the US mainland.
The US is against North Korea’s nuclear weapons but Pyongyang says it will not give up on its nuclear deterrence unless Washington ends its hostile policy toward the country and dissolves the US-led UN command in South Korea. Thousands of US soldiers are stationed in South Korea and Japan.