President Donald Trump in April told Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte that the United States has two nuclear submarines stationed in Korean waters, according to several reports.
“We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarines, the best in the world,” Trump bragged to Duterte, according to reports by the New York Times and the Intercept. “We have two nuclear submarines, not that we want to use them at all.”
Trump asked the Philippine president whether North Korean leader Kim Jong-un is “stable or not stable,” according to those reports and one by the Washington Post, all of which cited a transcript of the call produced by the Philippine government.
He called Kim a “madman with nuclear weapons,” according to the reports, but said that at least “all his rockets are crashing.”
“That’s the good news,” Trump said, according to the Washington Post.
BuzzFeed reported on Wednesday, citing three unnamed Pentagon officials, that defense officials were shocked by reports Trump had disclosed the location of the submarines because: “We never talk about subs!”
Trump’s cavalier attitude toward sensitive information is nothing new. The Washington Post reported last week that Trump shared highly classified information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to the U.S. during a meeting in the Oval Office earlier in May.
During that meeting, according to the report, Trump also bragged about the “great intel” he gets every day, and went on to disclose that highly classified information, which he did not have permission to share.
This post has been updated.
