The United States should be prepared for a pre-emptive strike on North Korea as the communist nation is getting closer to perfecting capabilities to deliver a nuclear missile to the US, a House lawmaker said Sunday.

Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) made the remark in an interview with Fox News, days after US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that all options were on the table in dealing with the communist nation and the military option is one of them.

"The closer that the North Korean regime gets to being able to deliver a nuclear weapon, we're going to have to be in a position to take some type of pre-emptive strike. We hope that it doesn't come to that. But this is an unhinged regime. You have 20 million people, you know, living in extreme poverty," Nunes said.

The congressman said he was impressed by Tillerson.

"I've never met the new secretary of state yet, but I am happy that we're getting off of this strategic patience, which was our last policy towards North Korea. At the end of the day here, something may have to be done because we can't afford to let a nuclear weapon go off in Seoul or Tokyo or the United States for that matter," he said.

He was referring to Tillerson's declaration of an end to former President Barack Obama's much-denounced North Korea policy, known as "strategic patience," which centers on waiting for Pyongyang to show good faith while increasing sanctions and pressure on the regime. (Yonhap)