WASHINGTON—In 2012, when Donald Trump was a celebrity businessman, he wrote on Twitter: “Price of corn has jumped over 50%. This will cause a jump in food prices perhaps beyond what we`ve ever seen.”Four years later, when he was running for president, he told the New York Times that China was building, in the South China Sea, “a military fortress the likes of which perhaps the world has not seen.”The expression popped out of his mouth again after he won the election. In December, Trump told supporters that they had created “a grassroots movement the likes of which the world has never seen before.”Read the latest news on U.S. President Donald TrumpAnd there it was again when Trump was ad-libbing about the opioid addiction crisis on Tuesday afternoon. He claimed that he was “very, very strong on our southern border — and I would say the likes of which this country certainly has never seen.”Until that point, the president’s pet phrase was unremarkable. It was mere hyperbole — mere Trump. This was a man who never used “big” when “huge” could do. This was just how the man spoke.And then, minutes after his remarks on opioids, the phrase suddenly became a threat of nuclear war.A reporter asked him if he had any response to the news, revealed by the Washington Post on Tuesday, that U.S. intelligence believes North Korea has successfully miniaturized a nuclear warhead.“North Korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury like the world has never seen,” Trump responded, stern, at his golf club in New Jersey. “He has been very threatening beyond a normal state, and as I said they will be met with fire and fury and frankly power the likes of which this world has never seen before.”Without the “like the world has never seen,” Trump’s remarks about “fire and fury& ...
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