Dick Cheney: 'We're in deep doo-doo' with North Korea

Sometimes you just have to be blunt.

Dick Cheney warned lawmakers to take threats from North Korea very seriously, CNN reported Tuesday, in an unusually colorful manner.

“We’re in deep doo-doo,” the former vice president told a group of Republicans in a closed-door meeting, a Republican aide told CNN. Florida Rep. Steve Southerland added that Cheney wore his cowboy hat to the meeting. and "looked really good, [he] spoke really clearly, lucidly.”

Cheney, who had been invited to speak by Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy, told the group that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was an unpredictable young man who could have a "number of reasons" for his actions. According to Southerland, Cheney compared Kim to his own experience with Iraq's former dictator, Saddam Hussein.

The meeting took place amid escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula. The Obama administration said Tuesday that North Korea might test ballistic missiles at any time.