24 Mar 2019 11:12 am
It's a **** inside of a dumpster fire.
Trump surprises his own aides by reversing North Korea sanctions.
President Donald Trump on Friday set off widespread confusion across the administration when he appeared to announce that he would undo recently imposed sanctions on North Korea.
Following hours of uncertainty, administration officials later insisted that Trump was not referring to the new sanctions on North Korea that his administration rolled out just a day before.
Instead, the officials claimed, the president was declaring that he was opposing not-yet-announced sanctions on Pyongyang.
Trump’s sudden tweet left the White House groping for an explanation for much of Friday, telling reporters only that Trump “likes” North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“It was announced today by the U.S. Treasury that additional large scale Sanctions would be added to those already existing Sanctions on North Korea,” Trump tweeted. “I have today ordered the withdrawal of those additional Sanctions!”
In a follow-up statement earlier Friday afternoon, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, "President Trump likes Chairman Kim and he doesn’t think these sanctions will be necessary."
Trump’s tweet surprised many of his senior aides, and even some Treasury Department officials were caught off guard, according to a person familiar with the matter.
