CNN: N. Korean Officials Said of Trump Speech, We Don’t Care ‘What that Mad Dog May Utter’

North Korean officials are responding to President Trump's forceful denunciation of the "hell" 35 miles north of Seoul by saying they don't care "what that mad dog may utter."

Trump singled Kim Jong Un out directly in his address at the South Korea's National Assembly.

"North Korea is not the paradise your grandfather envisioned," Trump said. "It is a hell that no person deserves."

North Korean officials are trying to downplay the significance of Trump's address, CNN's Will Ripley reported from Pyongyang. 

“We were going over the speech as it was happening with North Korean officials," Ripley reported, "And they reiterated what they told me just about an hour before President Trump spoke, which is that they were down-playing the significance of his words in Seoul about 120 miles from where I’m standing right now." 

“Of course the two countries as the president mentioned cannot be farther apart. And the North Korea official said, this is quote here, they ‘don’t care what that mad dog may utter,’" he continued. "'Mad dog' referring to the president. The Koreans are certainly doubling down on their fiery rhetoric saying this situation right now is the most tense that it has been since the Korean War. That is the official word from North Korean government officials."

Trump surprised some by signaling an openness to strike a deal with North Korea. Any such prospect, the president said, would come with three preconditions: ending its aggressive posture toward the U.S., halting the development of ballistic missiles, and "complete and verifiable and total denuclearization."

North Korean officials said that Trump, per Ripley, is "trying to ignite another war on the peninsula."