(CNN) – Republican leaders in Congress received a dire warning on Tuesday from former Vice President Dick Cheney on the ongoing crisis in North Korea.
“We’re in deep doo doo,” Cheney told lawmakers, according to a GOP leadership aide.
Northeast Asia on edge ahead of possible North Korean missile test
Cheney added the current North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, is unpredictable and doesn't share the United States worldview.
One lawmaker present at the session, Rep. Steve Southerland of Florida, said Cheney wore a cowboy hat and "looked really good, spoke really clearly, lucidly.”
“It was nice to see him doing well,” Southerland said, noting the last time Cheney was on Capitol Hill he "didn’t look good – very frail, but in this meeting he looked great."
U.S, North Korean officials met secretly in March
Cheney, 72, underwent a successful heart transplant in 2012 after a series of heart attacks over many years.
Southerland said Cheney spent about 10 minutes in the GOP leadership meeting Tuesday, and didn't give any specific policy recommendations or critiques of how the Obama administration is handling the situation in North Korea.
Cheney talked about the North Korean leader, Southerland said, and shared some of his history dealing with Saddam Hussein, noting "you never know what they're thinking."
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Southerland, summarizing the former vice president’s remarks, said Cheney advised not to “eliminate any possibility.”
“Here's a young guy we don't know very much about – have very little intel on him, so we just need to make sure that we don't assume why he's doing what he's doing because he could be doing what he's doing for any number of reasons,” Southerland recalled Cheney saying.
Cheney also dropped by the weekly House GOP whip meeting at the invitation of Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
North Korea's war of words escalates - Timeline of a crisis
Cheney himself is a former House Republican whip.
"Whip McCarthy invited Vice President Cheney to discuss the ongoing situation on the Korean Peninsula with members of our whip team. We appreciate the vice president for sharing his insight and experience on the matter," a McCarthy aide told CNN.
The aide declined to say whether Cheney suggested any specific course of action on the situation in North Korea during this meeting.
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From CNN Politics
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Unbelievable that the GOP still opens a door to this megalomaniac. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Shrub should all be in prison.
Can someone tell this guy he is no longer relevant.
He is probably right...but sure hard to take advice from the man who sent our troops in seach of weapons of mass distruction where there were none.
Of course you are going to paint the worst case scenario Mr. Haliburton – Going to war and having enemies keeps your assets in the black.
Right, CNN now using one of the biggest liars in US government history for a story. IDK call me crazy......but really seems like US government and their friends in the CNN media force are building another war machine and once again pushing buttons....they should be pushing. I get the Nk is ridiculous, but its even more ridiculous to think that they are a threat.
Dont listen to the CNN war machine, NK is not a threat...not even close to one.
I'm a moderate Republican, and that being said, this man's an idiot and epitomizes everything that was/is wrong with the direction of our party.
McCain isn't far off. Though I respect him for his service to our country, it's time he stood aside and allowed our younger, more ideological representatives to take over, such as Rand, West, and Rubio.
The only "deep do do" we're in here is figuring out which of our 5 separate anti-missile platforms needs more fine-tuning, therefore should get the practice of knocking this one down.
I mean really...who cares what Dick Cheney thinks about anything. A failed VP and and a failed man responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands including thousands of Americans and tens of thousands wounded.
must have got a memo from haliburton
One lawmaker present at the session, Rep. Steve Southerland of Florida, said Cheney wore a cowboy hat and "looked really good, spoke really clearly, lucidly.”
Still playing the part of the tough, swaggering cowboy huh Dick? Too bad you wimped out of enlisting in the armed services during the Vietnam War, then you could have proven how tough you are...or not. Why anyone would listen to a war-mongering chicken hawk like you is beyond me.
So Cheney doesn't say anything that we don't already know, has no particular insight, provides no critique about Obama, basically has nothing to offer (except that he looks good wearing cowboy boots). Sounds like another "old" Republican that needs to be put out to pasture...
Too bad Cheney and Bush wasted our resources (personnel AND money) in Iraq, leaving us less capable of dealing with North Korea
I wonder if Cheney remembers why North Korea became nuclear power to begin with ...
My bad. He looks good in a cowboy hat....
Mr. "The Iraqis will welcome us with open arms and greet us with flowers" always seems to have his finger on the pulse of good foreign policy.
Dick Cheney wore a Cowboy hat and said the US is in "deep doo doo"....does it get any more surreal than this? Wonder if Dick can tell us how far NK missles can actually travel and whether they have an effective long range launch capability..."doo doo"... yeah the US is really in trouble with China sitting on NK's backdoor...and we owe China trillions...think about the economics, you simpleton...now i know why this guy was thrown out of Yale....twice....
Seriously, I am surprised that anyone would, whether it's a Republican or a Democrat, even think of inviting the former Vice President, Dick Cheney, to share his opinion on the North Korean crisis, since he and his cohorts made such irrational and disasterous decisions when it came to Iraq and Afghanistan, and we are still paying for it. He's the man who did not know how to shoot his target while hunting, instead shot his good friend! Come on!!
Cheney says we are in "deep doo doo"? Is this the mind of a vice president or a junior high school kid? Well one thing is for sure; if he says we are in trouble it is clear we are NOT.
While North Korea was developing nukes and missiles, Cheney was busy helping his buddies profit from the Iraq War, which was sold to the American public with lies.
After the great job he did in Iraq we should be listening to every word old Dick has to say.
Not to worry, Hillary will talk to the North Koreans and work things out. She's quite the successful negotiator you know. Just look at her successes in Iran, Libya and Egypt. Without her, we wouldn't have our Arab Spring.
So Cheney looked fit, wore a cowboy hat and clearly said "doodoo."
This is newsworthy?
I sure hope they are smart enough to not take foreign policy advice from this guy. You know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on .. umm.. fool me.. .. err."
“We’re in deep doo doo”? Wow, what a serious, detailed assessment of the situation. Thank goodness we still have brilliant people like Dick Cheney to break it down for us.
"The aide declined to say whether Cheney suggested any specific course of action on the situation in North Korea during this meeting."
Bush and Cheney did nothing to address the North Korea situation during their actual administration, so why would they have any ideas worth hearing now?
Too bad we don't have Cheney helping with the N. Korea crisis. It would probably already be resolved and settled if we did.