TVC E, NEWS – Republican presidential candidates have condemned the North Korea’s rocket launch moments before the White House hopefuls took the stage in New Hampshire for their eighth debate on Saturday (February 6).
The rocket was launched at around 9:30am Seoul time (0030 GMT) in a southward trajectory. Japan’s Fuji Television Network showed a streak of light heading into the sky, taken from a camera at China’s border with North Korea.
Speaking on Saturday, U.S. Strategic Command said its systems had detected what it believed to be a North Korean launch that was tracked on a southern trajectory over the Yellow Sea.
Republicans slammed President Barack Obama and previous Democratic administrations over the missile incident. Texas senator Ted Cruz called for expanded missile defense capacity, and the launch was “the direct result of the failures of the first Clinton administration”
“What we should do now, one of the first things we should do is expand our missile defense capacity. We ought to put missile defense interceptors in South Korea. South Korea wants them. One of the real risks of this launch, North Korea wants to launch a satellite, and one of the greatest risks of the satellite is they would place a nuclear device in the satellite. As it would orbit around the Earth, and as it got over the United States they would detonate that nuclear weapon and set of what’s called an EMP, and electromagnetic pulse which could take down the entire electrical grid on the Eastern seaboard, potentially killing millions. We need to harden the grid to defend ourselves, and we need missile defense to protect ourselves against North Korea.”
The candidates called for a range of responses, including new sanctions and a potential preemptive strike against North Korea’s missiles to prevent the nation from hurting civilians.
“The next president of the United States is gonna have to get the United States back in the game, and if a preemptive strike is necessary to keep us safe, then we should do it,” said former Florida governor Jeb Bush.
Real estate mogul Donald Trump, who leads in New Hampshire and nationally in opinion polls, called for letting China deal with North Korea.
“China says they don’t have that good of control over North Korea. They have tremendous control,” Trump said. “Let China solve that problem, they can do it quickly and surgically. That’s what we should do with North Korea.”
