Donald Trump will not let American cities fall “hostage” to a nuclear attack, said nuclear deterrence expert Rebeccah Heinrichs.
North Korea has ramped up its nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in recent months and continually threatened to target the US.
Speaking to Fox News, Mr Heinrichs slammed Obama for failing to address Kim Jong-un’s nuclear ambitions during his time in office.
She said: “I am very pleased to see President Trump call attention to the evil of the regime.
“We saw that defector – how powerful was that when he held up his crutches what a picture of liberty and what this person did in order to get out of the clutches of this despotic regime in North Korea.”
She said it is “important” for President Trump to draw attention to the “brutality of the regime”.
Mr Heinrichs said: “It’s because the American people didn’t know that this is the kind of regime that does not deserve the privilege and the responsibility of having nuclear weapons that can harm so many people.
“President Trump is saying a regime like this, we are not going to let that hold American cities hostage to a nuclear attack.”
Donald Trump used his State of the Union speech to warn Americans that Pyongyang’s pursuit of nuclear missiles could “very soon threaten our homeland” and vowed a continued campaign to prevent that.
In his first State of the Union speech to the US Congress, Mr Trump sent a warning to Kim Jong-un: ”North Korea’s reckless pursuit of nuclear missiles could very soon threaten our homeland.
“We are waging a campaign of maximum pressure to prevent that from ever happening.”
President Trump also used the same speech highlight the brutal regime of Kim Jong-un when he told the story of a North Korean defector’s journey who suffered torture and starvation.
Mr Ji cried as President Trump described how he was a “starving boy in North Korea who escaped 22 years ago from his homeland, where he had been run over by a train while trying to steal coal to barter for food.”
The US leader said: “In the process, he passed out on the train tracks, exhausted from hunger. He woke up as a train ran over his limbs.”
Mr Ji lost a hand and a foot after “amputations without anything to dull the pain”.