Trump flaunts friendship with Kim Jong-un, claims Obama nearly launched war with North Korea

US President Donald Trump has again claimed that his predecessor Barack Obama was close to starting a war with North Korea, saying that if he "wasn't elected, there would have been a war."

"President Obama thought you had to go to war. You know how close he was to pressing the trigger," Trump said at a solo press conference on Wednesday, adding that "not thousands... (But) millions of people would have been killed" in what "could have been a world war", CNN reported.

"If I wasn't elected, you'd be in a war," Trump declared, seeking to bolster his claim by implying that Obama had "essentially," told him so directly.

Trump also flaunted his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un on Wednesday, referencing a new "extraordinary letter" he received from Kim and announcing that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will head to Pyongyang to lay the groundwork for another meeting between the two leaders.

It is not the first time that Trump has portrayed Obama's dealings with North Korea as a failure or implied the previous administration was on the precipice of war in an attempt to boost public perceptions about his own quest for a diplomatic resolution with Pyongyang.

In June, a week after his summit in Singapore with Kim, Trump suggested that the media would have named Obama a "national hero" if he had also "gotten along" with Pyongyang.

"If President Obama (who got nowhere with North Korea and would have had to go to war with many millions of people being killed) had gotten along with North Korea and made the initial steps toward a deal that I have, the Fake News would have named him a national hero!" Trump tweeted at the time.