Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard calls for Trump to negotiate with Kim Jong Un after false missile alert

Jan. 14--Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard called it "absolutely unacceptable" and an "epic failure of leadership" that the state sent out a false ballistic missile alert -- and then took nearly 40 minutes to correct the error.

The Hawaii rep, appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," also said the false alarm shows the need for President Trump to negotiate with North Korea on its nuclear arsenal.

The false alert from the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency warning of an incoming ballistic missile went out to cell phones of people across the state Saturday morning, and also blared across television screens. It took 38 minutes to send a new alert correcting the error, which occurred when someone pushed the wrong button.

"It's absolutely unacceptable, and it's an epic failure of leadership," Gabbard said Sunday.

"Yes, it was unacceptable that this went out in the first place. But the fact that it took so long for them to put out that second message to calm people, to allay their fears, that this was a mistake, a false alarm, is something that has to be fixed, corrected, with people held accountable."

Gabbard said the warning sparked mass panic across the state.

"You can only imagine...the panic, the terror, the chaos and confusion," she said, adding that people thought "they've got minutes to say goodbye to their loved ones, to find their loved ones, to try to find some kind of shelter somewhere."

Gabbard, a Democrat, said Trump should be talking directly to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to work out a deal so that the people of her state are no longer living in fear of a possible nuclear attack.

"This threat of nuclear war, nuclear attack is not a game," she said, adding that Trump should "absolutely and immediately" be speaking to Kim.

"The people of Hawaii are paying the price now for decades of failed leadership in this country, of failure to directly negotiate, to prevent us from getting to this point where we're dealing with this threat today," she said.

The Congresswoman said there should be no preconditions demanded before talks begin.

Trump should "sit across the table from Kim Jong Un without preconditions, work out the differences, figure out a way to build this pathway towards denuclearization, because there is so much at stake," she said.

Trump has derided Kim as "Rocket Man" and dismissed negotiations with North Korea as a waste of time, threatening to wipe the country out if it threatens the United States. But he has also said he'd be willing to talk to the North Korean leader, if certain conditions are met.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Ajit Pai said the FCC has launched an investigation and believes flaws in Hawaii's alert system are to blame.

"It caused a wave of panic across the state -- worsened by the 38-minute delay before a correction was issued. Moreover, false alerts undermine public confidence in the alerting system and thus reduce their effectiveness during real emergencies," he said.

"The FCC's investigation into this incident is well underway," Pai said. "Based on the information we have collected so far, it appears that the government of Hawaii did not have reasonable safeguards or process controls in place to prevent the transmission of a false alert."

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