The White House is blowing off a statement from North Korea’s foreign minister that the U.S. had “declared war” against the rogue nation.

Said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders:

 “We’ve not declared war on North Korea and frankly the suggestion of that is absurd,” Sanders said.

Words matter, Sarah.

There may be no official declaration of war and we all get that, but we’ve been told again and again that President Trump couldn’t give up his Twitter account because it’s where he makes his appeal to the American people, and that statements made from his Twitter account were pretty much “official.”

Trump tweeted several provocative tweets, not only provoking North Korea’s leader with schoolyard names, but saying some things that certainly sounded threatening.

But then, it’s Trump. He wasn’t thinking about what he said or how it sounded before he tweeted out some red meat to his base. He was going for Twitter “likes” and retweets. He absolutely does not understand that as president, it’s not really wise to act like you’re back in reality TV and jobbing for WWE wrestling crowds.

I don’t even know if they get WWE Smackdown in North Korea, but I doubt it.

In response to Trump’s words, the foreign minister responded:

“In light of the declaration of war by Trump, all options will be on the operating table of the Supreme leadership of [the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea],” Ri Yong Ho said.

North Korea has also threatened to shoot down U.S. aircraft over international waters.

Will they do it? Who knows.

What we do know for sure is that Trump has really been pushing the NFL thing, because, apparently, he was advised against acting like a child when speaking about the North Korea problem, but he couldn’t help himself. He needs a cover for his latest gaffe.

The foreign minister’s reaction has forced them to face the issue.

“It’s never appropriate to shoot down another country’s aircraft when it’s over international waters,” Sanders responded.

“Our goal is still the same. We continue to seek the peaceful denuclearization of the peninsula. That’s our focus. Doing that through both the most maximum economic and diplomatic pressures as possible at this point.”

Sanders also suggested that Trump’s top aides were all on board with Trump standing before the General Assembly of the United Nations and calling another world leader a juvenile name.

“As I’ve said many times before, I wouldn’t use another news source as your source and I pushed back on that story at the time, but that’s a false narrative,” Sanders said. “The national security team was involved and engaged throughout the speech-writing process and was very happy with the president’s speech at the U.N.”

Ok, Sarah. Ok.