U.S. President Donald Trump made clear on Friday that he meant what he said about the U.S. military being "locked and loaded" in response to threats from North Korea.
"We are looking at that very carefully, and I hope that they are going to fully understand the gravity of what I said, and what I said is what I mean," Trump told reporters at his golf club in New Jersey, according to The Hill.
Earlier on Friday, Trump tweeted that military options for a potential threat from North Korea are "fully in place," and urged the country's leader, Kim Jong Un, to de-escalate the current confrontation with Washington.
"Military solutions are now fully in place, locked and loaded, should North Korea act unwisely," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Hopefully Kim Jong Un will find another path!"
Trump’s tweet came a day after he doubled down on his warnings to North Korea, saying his threat to rain "fire and fury" on the isolated country maybe "wasn't tough enough."
Responding to North Korea's dismissal of his dire warnings as "nonsense," Trump told reporters, "Maybe it wasn't tough enough."
The President had warned North Korea earlier this week it faced "fire and fury like the world has never seen" if it continued to threaten the United States with its missile and nuclear programs.
North Korea was unfazed by Trump’s warning, and responded by threatening a missile attack on Guam, a tiny U.S. territory in the Pacific.
Friday’s tweet was posted after U.S. military officials said the military is ready to fight North Korea and waiting for Donald Trump's order to fire.
The suggested plan would involve an attack by the US Rockwell B-1 Lancer supersonic heavy bombers based in threatened Guam, they explained.
Speaking to NBC News, Retired Admiral James Stavridis said, "Of all the military options … [President Trump] could consider, this would be one of the two or three that would at least have the possibility of not escalating the situation."
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)