Hillary Clinton wasn’t the one speaking to the United Nations Tuesday, but she knew what she would have said.
The former presidential nominee joined Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” and blasted President Trump’s speech as “very dark, dangerous.”
“It’s not the kind of message that the leader of the greatest nation in the world should be delivering,” she said.
Addressing the General Assembly Tuesday, Trump told diplomats from 193 nations that the United States is prepared to “totally destroy” North Korea.
“No nation on Earth has an interest in seeing this band of criminals arm itself with nuclear weapons and missiles,” he said.
“The United States has great strength and patience. But if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,” he said.
Clinton, however, would have taken a softer approach if she were in charge.
“You are both required to stand up for the values of what we believe in — democracy and opportunity — as a way to demonstrate clearly the United States remains the beacon that we we want it to be, while of course, when you face dangerous situations like what is happening in North Korea, to make it clear your first approach should always be diplomatic,” she told Colbert.
“What I’d hoped the President would have said was something along the lines of ‘We view this as dangerous to our allies, to our region and even to our country. We call on all nations to work with us to try to end the threat posed by Kim Jung Un.’ And not call him Rocket Man, the old Elton John song, but to say it clearly: we will not tolerate any attacks on our friends or ourselves.”
Clinton, who is currently on a promotional tour for her memoir, “What Happened,” continued to press the need for diplomacy.
“You should lead with the commitment of trying to avoid conflict however you can,” she said.
She opened the show talking about her book, which she said helped her in “trying to come to grips with everything from sexism and misogyny to voter suppression to the unusual behavior of the former director of the FBI to the Russians.”
Pressed by Colbert, Clinton said she believes “so strongly that they succeeded in messing with our democracy” by influencing voters.
“I don’t think anybody can, with a straight face, say the Russians did not set out to influence our election,” she said. “And they did so.”
Despite earlier comments, the former secretary of state also said she has no intention of contesting the election, but that voters deserved the truth.
Colbert ended the segment with two glasses of chardonnay, which Clinton said helped her recover from her Nov. 8 letdown.