CNN's Jim Acosta told Sen. Ed Markey (D., Mass.) on Friday that the United States is moving toward a "doomsday nightmare scenario" with regards to North Korea.
"It is building up to this sort of doomsday nightmare scenario," Acosta said. "Obviously we don't want to even consider the possibilities that North Korea could detonate a hydrogen bomb over the Pacific, but that is what they're threatening. What do you make of that threat coming from the North Koreans? Do you think that that is bluster?"
Markey said that he thinks the United States should be concerned, denouncing the "escalatory rhetoric" between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
Acosta later asked Markey whether the United States needed to consider a military option if North Korea detonates a hydrogen bomb in an atmospheric test.
"No, there is no military option. None," Markey said. "If we take a strike at North Korea, it could very quickly escalate into the deaths of hundreds of thousands or millions of people in South Korea and in other countries in that region."
North Korea's foreign minister Ri Yong Ho told reporters on Friday that North Korea could test a a powerful nuclear bomb over the Pacific Ocean in response to Trump's threats of military action, CNN reported. That statement followed a similar one in which, in a breach of standard practice, Kim directly addressed Trump, calling him a "dotard" and "mentally deranged."
Acosta has no formal experience as a foreign policy analyst; he graduated from college in 1993 with a bachelor's degree in "mass communications," and now works as a "national political correspondent."