And if they think you're serious … they'll negotiate and it'll never come to that.”

TRUMP SAYS TALKING TO NORTH KOREA 'NOT THE ANSWER,' RIPS US 'EXTORTION' PAYMENTS

He said then that if he ever became president, the first step he would take would be to “negotiate like crazy” to make sure that the country would “get the best deal possible.” Trump also predicted then that in “three or four years,” North Korea would have weapons aimed all over the world, including at the U.S.

After North Korea said it successfully launched a missile over Japan, a U.S. ally, and into the Pacific Ocean, Trump initially had a surprisingly subdued response. In a terse, written statement Tuesday, Trump said that with the missile launch North Korea has “signaled its contempt for its neighbors, for all members of the United Nations, and for minimum standards of acceptable international behavior.”

“Threatening and destabilizing actions only increase the North Korean regime’s isolation in the region and among all nations of the world,” Trump said. “All options are on the table.”

In a first, North Korea on Tuesday fired a midrange ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload that flew over U.S. ally Japan and splashed into the northern Pacific Ocean, officials said. Abe said in a statement that “Japan’s and the U.S. positions are totally at one.”

The prime minister added that both nations were in “total agreement” that an emergency meeting was needed at the U.N. Security Council to step up pressure on North Korea after what he called an unprecedented threat. The operation was meant “to showcase a strong punishment capability against the North,” he said. “Any young guy that can take over from his father with all those generals and everybody else that probably wants the position, this is not somebody to be underestimated.”

‘What the hell is wrong with speaking?’

Trump told supporters at a campaign rally in Atlanta that should Kim Jong Un want to come to the U.S., he would be “accept[ed].”

MATTIS: WAR WITH NORTH KOREA WOULD BE 'CATASTROPHIC'

“I wouldn’t go there, that I can tell you.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley says North Korea's launch of a missile over Japan was "absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible" and that North Korea has "violated every single U.N. Security Council resolution that we've had, and so I think something serious has to happen."