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You are here: Home / Politics / America / The Text of the Statement Signed by the President and Kim Jong Un at the Singapore Summit

The Text of the Statement Signed by the President and Kim Jong Un at the Singapore Summit

by Adam L Silverman|  June 12, 20187:41 am| 159 Comments

This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Election 2018, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Politics, Popular Culture, Post-racial America, Silverman on Security, The Trump Doctrine, Not Normal

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From CNN:

Joint Statement of President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea at the Singapore Summit

President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) held a first, historic summit in Singapore on June 12, 2018.
President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un conducted a comprehensive, in-depth and sincere exchange of opinions on the issues related to the establishment of new US-DPRK relations and the building of a lasting and robust peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. President Trump committed to provide security guarantees to the DPRK, and Chairman Kim Jong Un reaffirmed his firm and unwavering commitment to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
Convinced that the establishment of new US-DPRK relations will contribute to the peace and prosperity of the Korean Peninsula and of the world, and recognizing that mutual confidence building can promote the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un state the following:
  1. The United States and the DPRK commit to establish new US-DPRK relations in accordance with the desire of the peoples of the two countries for peace and prosperity.
  2. The United States and DPRK will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the Korean Peninsula.
  3. Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula
  4. The United States and the DPRK commit to recovering POW/MIA remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.
Having acknowledged that the US-DPRK summit — the first in history — was an epochal event of great significance in overcoming decades of tensions and hostilities between the two countries and for the opening up of a new future, President Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un commit to implement the stipulations in the joint statement fully and expeditiously. The United States and the DPRK commit to hold follow-on negotiations, led by the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, and a relevant high-level DPRK official, at the earliest possible date, to implement the outcomes of the US-DPRK summit.
President Donald J. Trump of the United States of America and Chairman Kim Jong Un of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea have committed to cooperate for the development of new US-DPRK relations and for the promotion of peace, prosperity, and the security of the Korean Peninsula and of the world.
DONALD J. TRUMP
President of the United States of America
KIM JONG UN
Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
June 12, 2018
Sentosa Island
Singapore

Joe Cirincione provides the analysis:

I honestly don’t think that Trump realizes that this has been done before, that this has taken place before. Just not by him. The right-wing of the GOP killed the previous efforts.

— Joe Cirincione (@Cirincione) June 12, 2018

There is nothing new here in this statement. As I wrote on May 1st (emphasis mine):

When you hear or read Kim or other DPRK officials calling for denuclearization, part of what they mean is for the US to remove the nuclear umbrella that it provides to Japan and the ROK, if not the removal of the US military from the Korean Peninsula. Not giving up the DPRK’s nuclear deterrent. Sue Mi Terry, formerly a senior Korea analyst at the CIA, provides an explanation of what denuclearization means to Kim:

She said it’s significant that Kim spoke not of removing nuclear weapons from North Korea, but rather of the “denuclearization of the Korean peninsula,” as a whole. That formulation by the Kim government is “not new,” Terry told me, and has been accompanied in the past with demands for measures to preserve the regime’s security such as the signing of a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War, the withdrawal of U.S. troops from South Korea, and the end of the U.S.-South Korean military alliance, which in turn would terminate the protection the United States extends to South Korea through its nuclear weapons. Hence, talk of a nuclear-free peninsula despite the fact that South Korea doesn’t have nuclear weapons. (In this respect, Kim was right to assert that he was simply echoing the policies of his father, who was also quoted by Chinese media as committing to the denuclearization of the peninsula even as he persisted in developing the nation’s nuclear-weapons arsenal.)

What Kim is talking about is not what the President or anyone on his team is talking about when they talk about denuclearization. Before US-DPRK negotiations have ever begun we have a fundamental mismatch of what the key term means. This will make negotiating more difficult if there is no agreement to what the key terms mean and key issues actually are. There is little doubt that President Moon knows exactly what Kim means when he talks about denuclearization. Moreover, President Moon is no doubt very clear about the President not wanting to keep US military personnel in the ROK. The President, per his longstanding belief dating back to 1987, sees this as a waste of money and another example of America’s allies and partners taking advantage of it and playing the US for suckers.

While this is all significantly better than threats, escalations, and preparations for war, Kim got what he needed out of this summit and the President really didn’t. Kim’s now met with the President of the United States, which elevates his status internally and makes US allies like Japan very nervous. He got to go out on the town in Singapore after his arrival. The President has still floated the idea of a possible invite for a follow on summit in the US – either at the White House or Mar a Lago. The President has made vague statements of assurances of that an agreement will guarantee Kim’s regime’s survival, as well as significant economic aid. And Kim hasn’t had to do anything he wasn’t going to do anyway in exchange for all of this. Including agreeing to do anything substantial as a result of yesterday’s summit.

The President and his supporters will try to push this as a huge win over the next several months heading into the midterm elections. A sign of initial diplomatic and foreign policy success to compete with and cancel out the coming bad news that will accompany the trade war and counter tariffs that will result from the tariffs that the President had demanded and insists will Make America Great again for the forgotten men and women of America who are forgotten no more. Slowly, however, reality will intrude. Kim will continue to not give an inch; he’ll simply play good Supreme Leader in juxtaposition to playing bad Supreme Leader last year.

Updated at 8:oo AM EDT: (h/t Cheryl Rofer in comments)

The President appears to have caught everyone off guard by stating he’s going to stop further Joint, Interagency, Intergovernmental, and Multinational (JIIM) military exercises with our South Korean and Japanese allies.

EXCLUSIVE: President Trump tells @GStephanopoulos "I wanted to stop the war games, I thought they were very provocative, but I also think they're very expensive," when asked if he discussed pulling U.S. troops out of South Korea with Kim Jong Un. https://t.co/ANdmOzpPd9 pic.twitter.com/k015aM4PH9

— ABC News (@ABC) June 12, 2018

South Korean Blue House spox: “At this moment, the meaning and intention of President Trump's remarks requires more clear understanding.”

— Elise Hu (@elisewho) June 12, 2018

Optics over substance.

Open thread!

(ETA: I fixed the missing Cirincione tweet that WP ate.)

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Reader Interactions

159Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 7:42 am

    Optics over substance.

    It’s worked before. Hopefully, enough of us have learned our lesson for good.

  2. 2.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:43 am

    It appears that Trump has also ad-libbed an end to US military exercises with South Korea. The South Koreans were surprised by his statement to George Stephanopoulos (too expensive!) and are now scrambling, as is the case with all who work with Trump.

  3. 3.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:44 am

    Paen to the glorious leader!

    With the success of the #SingaporeSummit, the world is one step closer to peace on the Korean Peninsula. This historic summit is a tribute to the steadfast leadership of @POTUS on the world stage and an important milestone on the path to a nuclear free Korean Peninsula. ??

    — Vice President Mike Pence (@VP) June 12, 2018

  4. 4.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:45 am

    Here’s the video –

    EXCLUSIVE: President Trump tells @GStephanopoulos "I wanted to stop the war games, I thought they were very provocative, but I also think they're very expensive," when asked if he discussed pulling U.S. troops out of South Korea with Kim Jong Un. https://t.co/ANdmOzpPd9 pic.twitter.com/k015aM4PH9

    — ABC News (@ABC) June 12, 2018

  5. 5.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:45 am

    South Korean Blue House spox: “At this moment, the meaning and intention of President Trump's remarks requires more clear understanding.”

    — Elise Hu (@elisewho) June 12, 2018

  6. 6.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 7:46 am

    I know no one here needs convincing, but the Iran deal was much more fair to our interests than whatever this thing is.

    That said, I agree that it’s better that our country look bad for this reason than our country start a nuclear war to feed an old man’s ego.

  7. 7.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:47 am

    Uh, no

    "It does take a long time to pull off denuclearization," says @POTUS. "But once you start the process it's pretty much over. You can't use them."

    — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) June 12, 2018

  8. 8.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 7:48 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Diplobabble for “Fuck Trump.”

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    June 12, 2018 at 7:51 am

    Reposting my thoughts, from the dead thread downstairs:

    Agreed that there’s nothing of substance (at least that I’ve heard) so far.

    But we shouldn’t minimize the benefits that this meeting has provided to the region and the world.

    For years (many) in the US have talked about “preventing” the DPRK from getting a nuclear weapon and ICBMs, red lines, “it won’t happen”, nuclear war, and the like. Looking at it rationally, it was all bluster. An attack on the DPRK would have huge costs and little assurance that it would actually achieve the goal of ending their ICBM and warhead capabilities. There was the potential for thousands – or more – civilian deaths in exchange for the USA keeping its “word”.

    There are big benefits to the region and the world to have that bluster – on both sides – end; to have the weapons and ICBM tests end; and to actually be talking.

    I really don’t care about the “optics” and “Kim being treated like an equal”. Let them play BMOC for a few days. We tried (with notable exceptions) to isolate the Kims and punish them with sanctions and embargoes and the like for decades. It didn’t make them bend to our will. We can talk to him without ending all the economic punishments. We can even do some trade with them to encourage them to open up and liberalize. It doesn’t have to be a binary – we’ll bomb you back to the stone age vs. here, join the first world and sign a mutual defense treaty – relationship.

    I too have no confidence that Trump knows what he’s doing. He just wants the pomp, the parades, the medals, and the happy tweets. But this long overdue meeting was a good thing.

    What comes next is hugely important, of course… Presumably Congress can stop anything too insane – if not immediately then after January. We’ll see.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 7:56 am

    Oh man. So much to unpack in this video.

    Trump gave this near-fi mini-doc to Kim Jong Un. It’s Eisenstein meets Nietzsche meets Gandhi.https://t.co/1y5OkDxa1B

    — John Delury (@JohnDelury) June 12, 2018

  11. 11.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 7:58 am

    So, Trump got to sign a piece of paper. I’ve seen that trick before.

    Trump also seems to be committed to protecting Kim’s authoritarian regime. How does that affect the potential for re-unification?

    Is the Korean War over?

    Still, some points for reducing tensions.

    ETA. The foreign policy professionals and Pompeo have got to know what de-nuclearization means to Kim. Both sides deliberately omitted references to bombs and missiles, and the nuts and bolts of inspection, etc.

    Trump wanted to look good, and his talk about walking away if he didn’t like what he heard was a con. Kim and his people took advantage of Trump’s ego needs without giving away anything. A good double con.

  12. 12.

    JTL

    June 12, 2018 at 7:59 am

    @Another Scott: But this is Trump. This is the easy part and he didn’t even get concessions from Kim. Giving him ANY credit at all, as many are already doing, is just playing into his hands.

    He pulled out of the Iran agreement, which actually had substance because “it was the worst deal ever.” Now THIS empty statement means that things are “effectively over”? Seriously?

  13. 13.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 8:00 am

    “As an example, they have great beaches,” he said during a news conference after his meeting with Mr. Kim. “You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean. I said, ‘Boy look at that view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo?’” https://t.co/v5O57neseH

    — Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) June 12, 2018

  14. 14.

    Kay

    June 12, 2018 at 8:01 am

    @Another Scott:

    But Trump is a consistent liar who doesn’t keep his word. How can he make a “deal” with anyone? It doesn’t mean anything.

    @kaitlancollins
    35m35 minutes ago
    More Kaitlan Collins Retweeted Kaitlan Collins
    So neither the troops there nor the South Koreans were aware that Trump had agreed with Kim Jong Un that he would stop the U.S.-South Korean joint military exercises?

    Just look at Trump’s side of the negotiation. What does “agree” mean with Donald Trump? Nothing. His word is garbage. He screwed Canada, for God’s sake. He’s a liar. He says one thing in the meeting and another 15 minutes later.

  15. 15.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:03 am

    I’ve updated the original post with the President’s spontaneously announcing he’s stopping future military exercises. And I was able to get the Cirincione tweet to actually stay embedded in the post. Not sure why WP ate it the first time.

  16. 16.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2018 at 8:03 am

    I watched a couple of clips of Trump’s news conference and was struck by the language he used. He called the US-South Korean joint military exercises “provocative” and “war games,” which is likely how Kim’s translator framed them.

    Trump said Kim told him he (Kim) had been disingenuous with the “Clinton regime” and other US administrations, but that now Kim said he had a POTUS who is capable of “getting things done,” so the current agreement would not founder on empty promises like all the others.

    Trump also said Kim was “very talented” and complimented his ability to take over “a situation” like North Korea at age 26 and “run it tough,” alluding to a totalitarian regime with starvation and gulags and gruesome public executions as if he were discussing a callow real estate heir’s takeover of a bankrupt Fifth Avenue high rise.

    Trump went into this summit with one thing in mind: to produce a “win” for himself. That’s always his motivation, and it doesn’t have to be real beyond photo ops and propaganda points for Fox News.

    I’m sure this summit is a smashing success in Trump’s mind since the state TV people are already raining hosannas down on Dear Leader’s comb-over. That’s all that matters to Trump.

    The narrative battle will rage for the next few days, with the straight press reporting that little of substance happened and state TV bellowing about how unfair mainstream reporting is to Trump for refusing to credit him with a historic breakthrough.

  17. 17.

    GregB

    June 12, 2018 at 8:04 am

    This episode of Dancing with Dictators has been brought to you IHOB.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:04 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    “That’s…not how this works!….That’s not how any of this works!” pic.twitter.com/kI8zPiObKn

    — Amy Somers (@AmyLaurenSomers) June 10, 2018

  19. 19.

    JPL

    June 12, 2018 at 8:09 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: After spending all that money making the propaganda film, Trump had to sign something.

    The film scares the heck out of me.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:09 am

    @Baud: It’s also why Kim won’t sign anything that requires him to actually do anything. By pulling out of the Iran deal, the President and his talk tough, but never actually put their own butts in harms way advisors demonstrated that agreeing with the US to give up a nuclear weapons program and accepting intensive monitoring that one has given up a nuclear weapons program is a sure way to get your interests stepped on as long as this President is in office. No one, and I repeat NO ONE, is going to trust the US on this type of thing ever again. Especially if the president is a Republican. Kim is never going to give up what he has. Or computer based refinements. He’s not stupid. He saw what happened last month with Iran. And he saw what happened over the weekend with America’s closest allies.

  21. 21.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 8:09 am

    @JPL: Also after his debacle in Canada.

  22. 22.

    Another Scott

    June 12, 2018 at 8:10 am

    @JTL: One big thing the US gets out of it is the end of the public macho blustering that we will make Kim conform to Bolton’s our demands or destroy the DPRK. That wasn’t going to happen, and continuing to threaten to flatten the DPRK (as was the case just a few months ago) just made the US look like a paper tiger. Getting out of The Blob mindset that “… therefore we must do it” is a good thing, even if an idiot is in charge at the moment.

    Trump signed an anodyne statement that ends the bluster on the US side with little real cost, IMHO (I know others disagree). The sanctions are still in place.

    As I said, what comes next is hugely important.

    I’m a huge fan of diplomatic traditions and signaling and all the rest, but I don’t think being prisoner to “meeting the President is hugely symbolically important, therefore it can only happen if this, this, and this happens first even if it means risking war to not do it” is productive.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  23. 23.

    Another Scott

    June 12, 2018 at 8:13 am

    @Kay: Of course he’s a liar. Within the next 6 hours, people will begin walking back the end of exercises.

    There’s nothing of substance in the statement they signed.

    They both got to play BMOC and there’s no longer talk of war. That’s fine. Them being liars doesn’t change the benefits.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  24. 24.

    Chyron HR

    June 12, 2018 at 8:13 am

    If someone makes Princess Ivanka aware of the suffering of the little Korean babies, would Trump bomb North Korea to avenge them?

  25. 25.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:13 am

    @Another Scott:

    One big thing the US gets out of it is the end of the public macho blustering that we will make Kim conform to Bolton’s our demands or destroy the DPRK.

    Not so. Lindsey Graham was doing it just this morning. And since they believe macho blustering brought Kim to the table, they will probably double down on it with other countries (and NK too if NK eventually gets tired of fooling Trump).

  26. 26.

    Frankensteinbeck

    June 12, 2018 at 8:13 am

    So, as per my prediction, Trump showed up for a photo op, declared that he’d done something amazing, and actually did nothing whatsoever.

    Kim got what he needed out of this summit and the President really didn’t.

    Yep. Trump got rolled. Not that we’re going to change our policy towards North Korea one iota, since to Trump any written agreement is toilet paper, but just by the meeting he gave Kim something and got nothing for the US.

    The President and his supporters will try to push this as a huge win over the next several months

    Everything Trump touches turns to shit. Give it 48 hours. The news consensus will become that Trump accomplished nothing. In some cases, he will be mocked for knuckling under to North Korea. Pretty soon, he’ll decide he needs to bluster again, and will look even stupider. This agreement will give Trump and the GOP no points except with extreme partisans who don’t care about reality. (Alas, most of the GOP.)

    @Cheryl Rofer:
    Replace everything that comes out of Trump’s mouth with fart sounds, and you will be better informed about US policy. He says whatever pops into his head, which is usually what he thinks his audience wants to hear.

    @Brachiator:

    Trump also seems to be committed to protecting Kim’s authoritarian regime.

    Trump believes commitments are for suckers and promises are made to be broken.

    EDIT – @Another Scott:

    One big thing the US gets out of it is the end of the public macho blustering

    Since when is Trump even remotely consistent? It won’t take long for the bluster to be back.

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 12, 2018 at 8:14 am

    @Betty Cracker: Sounds like as predicted Kim stroked Trump’s ego and that’s all it took to get Trump to agree to everything.

    Another example of why Trump failed at business so many times – Trump basically squanders resources for grandstanding and gains nothing out of it.

  28. 28.

    tobie

    June 12, 2018 at 8:14 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Kudos to you for seeing that video threw to the end. I only made it to the one minute mark and I’m not sure what bothered me more — the Stalin-style propaganda or that my government was producing a Stalin-style propaganda video with my tax dollars.

    The GOP was ready to go with twitter feeds and talking heads declaring victory. Where are the Dems? There’s just one message to hit over and over again: we’ve legitimated a dictator on the world stage and gotten nothing in return and have already offered major concessions.

  29. 29.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:15 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: @JPL: From the Destiny Pictures about page:
    https://www.destinypictures.biz/ceo–producer

    Born and raised in New York, Mr. Castaldo began a professional career in the casino business working 10 years as a croupier in Atlantic City and Las Vegas. Mr. Castaldo then relocated to Los Angeles where he currently resides to pursue his passion of telling stories.

    Mr. Castaldo is an award winning independent producer well versed in all aspects of entertainment financing structure, production, post production, sales and distribution domestic and internationally.

    Mr. Castaldo produced the mystery thriller Dose Of Reality. The film stars Fairuza Balk, Rick Ravanello and Ryan Merriman. DOSE had its world premiere at the prestigious CINEQUEST Film Festival. Mr. Castaldo produced the inspirational documentary My Run – narrated by Academy Award winner Billy Bob Thornton. My Run screened in over 500 movie theaters nationwide in 140 of the top U.S. markets and received over 50 million impressions. The film won 10-best documentary awards including; the Audience Award for its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival, Outstanding Achievement In Documentary at the Newport Beach Film Festival, Outstanding Achievement In Documentary at the New York VisionFest and the Grand Jury Prize Best Documentary at the Las Vegas Film Festival to name a few, while screening in more than 15 film festivals.

    Mr. Castaldo was the co-executive producer on the horror/thriller Psych 9 in association with IPC International (Hostel, The Pink Panther). Film had its theatrical opening in the UK – Lions Gate has released the film domestically. The film stars Sara Foster, Cary Elwes and Michael Biehn. Mr. Castaldo produced The Perfect Tenant a twisted story of passion and revenge directed by Doug Campbell, starring Linda Purl and Maxwell Caulfield (premiered on HBO and Lifetime) and The Perfect Nanny a domestic thriller in the vein of The Hand That Rocks The Cradle directed by Rob Malenfant, starring Bruce Boxlitener and Tracy Nelson which (premiered on USA network garnering/ a 1.1 million licensing fee sale. Both of these “perfect” films are original stories developed by Mr. Castaldo.

    Mr. Castaldo also produced the comedy Serving Santino directed by Bill Kelman, which premiered at The Method Fest film festival.

    Previous, Mr. Castaldo was a judge for more than 5 years for The Academy Of Motion Pictures prestigious Nicholl Fellowship in screenwriting.

    Mr. Castaldo has also worked as a development executive for three years with Metro Pictures and American New Wave Films.

    Mr. Castaldo has been a Screen Actors Guild (SAG) member for over 20 years and three times selected on the nominating committee for the SAG awards.

    IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0144431/

  30. 30.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:15 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Everything Trump touches turns to shit. Give it 48 hours. The news consensus will become that Trump accomplished nothing.

    Today show was there this morning. It was pretty fair reporting.

  31. 31.

    Amir Khalid

    June 12, 2018 at 8:16 am

    I have a sneaking fear that all this will turn out even worse than it looks now.

  32. 32.

    Matt McIrvin

    June 12, 2018 at 8:16 am

    Slowly, however, reality will intrude.

    Probably sometime in Trump’s second term, if historical patterns are any indication.

  33. 33.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:17 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think we can take that as circumstantial evidence that Kim Yong Chol dangled a development opportunity at their meeting in the White House a couple of week’s ago.

  34. 34.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 8:17 am

    @tobie: I almost gave up after the first minute. But I figured it’s my job.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:17 am

    @tobie: Unfortunately, after so many people on our own side decided Hillary was a bigger hawk than Trump, Dems have to be cautious about being seeing as standing in the way of peace lest they suffer the same fate.

  36. 36.

    Cheryl Rofer

    June 12, 2018 at 8:19 am

    @Adam L Silverman: I was trying to figure out that “Destiny Pictures” thing in the middle of the video, thought maybe it was just a cheesy reference to the great destiny the two dictators shared.

    But it was an ad. Mmkay.

  37. 37.

    Mary G

    June 12, 2018 at 8:20 am

    Tillerson called it. Our president is a moron.

  38. 38.

    tobie

    June 12, 2018 at 8:20 am

    @Baud: Who are we afraid of losing? The hardcore purity ponies we’ve lost already? I see no downside in pointing out again and again that we’ve given Kim legitimacy while sacrificing our own. Am I missing something?
    ETA: I think I’m missing the irony of your post. I’m being a dunderhead.

  39. 39.

    Platonailedit

    June 12, 2018 at 8:21 am

    Of course, the corrupt 3rd rate msm will try to spin this presidential fucking pivot till the midterms. Hopefully the dems have to strategy to kneecap that narrative. Non US media is already skeptical about this shitshow.

  40. 40.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:21 am

    @Another Scott:

    One big thing the US gets out of it is the end of the public macho blustering that we will make Kim conform to Bolton’s our demands or destroy the DPRK. That wasn’t going to happen, and continuing to threaten to flatten the DPRK (as was the case just a few months ago) just made the US look like a paper tiger. Getting out of The Blob mindset that “… therefore we must do it” is a good thing, even if an idiot is in charge at the moment.

    I think you’re reading too much into this. For now, yes, this is the reality. Will this still be the reality in a few months, however, when Kim’s done nothing and the President gets frustrated that his shiny new toy is broken?

  41. 41.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:22 am

    @tobie: We still need marginal voters to show up and vote for us to eek out wins against Republicans. The people who are influenced by the noise created by purity ponies as well as esteemed and respected publications like the New York Times.

  42. 42.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:23 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Anyone want to put money down against the likelihood that the casino that Mr. Castaldo was a croupier in had Trump in bright lights about the entrance?

  43. 43.

    Citizen_X

    June 12, 2018 at 8:24 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It won’t take long for the bluster to be back.

    But this time without all that silly “practice” which, according to Trump in that Stephanopoulos video at #4, is apparently for losers.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:24 am

    @Platonailedit: I’ve only seen the Today show, and as I’ve noted they were fair. Can’t speak about other mainstream media outlets.

  45. 45.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:25 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: That’s why I checked as soon as I saw it on the screen.

  46. 46.

    Aleta

    June 12, 2018 at 8:26 am

    Parts 2-5 of that movie coming soon to every TV on the US campaign trail.

  47. 47.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:26 am

    @tobie: It’s early. And everyone had a late night of spectacle. We’ll let it go.
    For now…//

  48. 48.

    Kay

    June 12, 2018 at 8:26 am

    @Amir Khalid:

    It really could because Trump is a liar and if he made assurances that he doesn’t intend to keep it will get worse.

    I watched some of the CNN coverage last night and there’s this theme that goes something like this – “this will be different because now we have our own bad faith erratic actor, negotiating for us!”

    This is nutty. Good faith + bad faith has equaled failure. The theory here is that bad faith + bad faith will equal success?

    It’s magical thinking. There’s no basis for it, other than some vague bullshit about how “chaos” is good because it keeps an opponent off balance, blah, blah.

  49. 49.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:27 am

    ex-US Ambassador to North Korea Chris Hill on summit outcome: “Forgettable. joint statement weaker than any previous one since 1992. There is no way forward, no roadmap, no diplomatic strategy.”

    — John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) June 12, 2018

  50. 50.

    D58826

    June 12, 2018 at 8:28 am

    The decline and fall of the Roman empire took several centuries
    The sun set on the British Empire took 2 world wars and several decades
    The destruction of the American lead post war structure is disappearing in a matter of days.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2018 at 8:28 am

    The Snapdragon of Budapest is impressed:

    “ABSOLUTELY STUNNING” –@SebGorka reacts to “history in the making” as President Trump gets Kim Jong Un to denuclearize in less than a day pic.twitter.com/1wp5AjLiMs

    — FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) June 12, 2018

  52. 52.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:29 am

    @Baud:

    If you think the Iran nuke deal – negotiated w/ P5 +1 + EU over 20 months & that had verifiable & intrusive limits on Iran was insufficient – but think the 1 page NK-US statement on denuclearization, without any details, verification or monitors is robust… you are a hypocrite

    — Ayman Mohyeldin (@AymanM) June 12, 2018

  53. 53.

    Ohio Mom

    June 12, 2018 at 8:30 am

    That clip with Stephanopolous is telling. The North Korean people are ‘hard working, industrious, they are full of fervor for their leader.’

    Nothing about about a goal of a democratic future for the North Korean people. I know our country’s talk about bringing freedom to the people of the word is hyperbolic but contrast this with Regan’s “tear down this wall!”

    Democracy is a word that isn’t in Trump’s vocabulary. He really is a natural fascist.

  54. 54.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:31 am

    @Betty Cracker: That’s the Blue Footed Boobie of Budapest!

    Also, if there’s one thing Seb knows it’s authoritarian rulers.

    Finally, that boy’s noggin is huge! Like it has it’s own gravity, atmosphere, and climate huge!

  55. 55.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:31 am

    @D58826: At least people aren’t economically anxious anymore.

    @Adam L Silverman: Mohyeldin is smart.

  56. 56.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:33 am

    @Ohio Mom: His grandfather was a draft dodger. His father was pro KKK. He’s managed to merge both successfully.

  57. 57.

    JPL

    June 12, 2018 at 8:34 am

    @Ohio Mom: He really is a natural fascist. The mob taught him all that he knows.

  58. 58.

    Betty Cracker

    June 12, 2018 at 8:36 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Like an orange on a toothpick!

  59. 59.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 12, 2018 at 8:36 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Will this still be the reality in a few months, however, when Kim’s done nothing and the President gets frustrated that his shiny new toy is broken?

    Would Kim just play the submissive Asian with Trump in private again and offer Trump another summit as a “win”? I sounds like Kim and his people have Trump figured out.

  60. 60.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    June 12, 2018 at 8:42 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    3 years from now, when the political, social, and business purges have happened and the KPop studios are all devoted to Kim worship in the unified absolute hereditary autocracy of Korea, the survivors can silently reflect on what it means to put faith in Deadbeat Donnie Trump.

    Big question – does Moon’s misplaced trust turn him out of office this summer?

  61. 61.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:45 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: They’ll likely try. I have no doubt that they have a far better key leader profile on the President than we have on Kim. Moreover, whatever we have on Kim, the President won’t read and won’t focus long enough to be briefed on in prep. So it wouldn’t matter if our key leader packet on him was 100% accurate. The President, however, is a reflex and reactionary actor. There is no telling what will or won’t set him off. And he’s surrounded himself with some of the most bellicose advisors possible (Bolton, Navarro).

  62. 62.

    Baud

    June 12, 2018 at 8:46 am

    https://www.reddit.com/r/WatchPeopleDieInside/comments/8qgdx9/thin_and_perfect/

  63. 63.

    Platonailedit

    June 12, 2018 at 8:46 am

    Kim is, by far, by very far, winning this.

    – Brought Trump to the table using nuclear threats

    – Summit in a wealthy city, media blitz, international legitimacy

    – Trump suspends war games

    – Trump says he wants to remove troops

    – Trump says he trusts Kim

    – Kim offers zero in return

    — İyad el-Baghdadi | إياد البغدادي (@iyad_elbaghdadi) June 12, 2018

  64. 64.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:47 am

    This is the second time I’ve seen this formulation in two days. The first was a quote from Kushner to Mahmoud Abbas in Entous’s reporting on how Netanyahu and the Emiratis went all in for and on the President.

    Trump on the North Korean problem: "Think of it from a real estate perspective."

    — Anna Fifield (@annafifield) June 12, 2018

    I’m not sure how a 30 year mortgage with no HELOC helps people living in refugee camps or in political prisons, but I’m funny that way.

  65. 65.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 12, 2018 at 8:50 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: Who is Eisenstein?

    ETA: According to Wikipedia, a Russian filmmaker.

  66. 66.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:51 am

    N. Korean official wiped the two official Signing pen for Kim, then at the last minute Kim Yo Jong his sister pulled out her own per to use instead of the one provided. Kim used that and back it went in her blazer.
    (Afraid of Trans dermal Poisoning , Fingerprint/DNA Harvesting?) pic.twitter.com/G7P6lwS4Hp

    — Edward (@DonKlericuzio) June 12, 2018

  67. 67.

    Jeffro

    June 12, 2018 at 8:51 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: “Basically, George, I told him I’d give him pretty much anything he wanted short of a hand job and actually including that if he would just praise me and let me go back home with a win, which is more than I can say for that frickin’ Justin Trudeau and the rest of those LOSERS!”

    “So yeah, I gave him GREAT optics, our flags all mingled together, big smiling handshake, canceled US-SK joint exercises, a sack full of Benjamins, a duffel bag LOADED with Big Macs, and threw sheer terror into our allies in South Korea and Japan. Other than that, though, you lousy #FakeNews reporter, IDIDNTGIVEHIMANYTHING and came away with a big, Big WIN!!! Owning the libs, that’s just what I do…”

  68. 68.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:51 am

    Remember when they remade the movie Karate Kid 25 years later? That’s what this is: pic.twitter.com/QVZMB3X6Sj

    — Vipin Narang (@NarangVipin) June 12, 2018

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    June 12, 2018 at 8:52 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Moreover, whatever we have on Kim, the President won’t read and won’t focus long enough to be briefed on in prep

    Adam, let’s be fair: I’m sure the president* was provided with some really nice 8×10 glossy photos of Kim…in the hopes that he would focus on talking to the correct North Korean when they met.

  70. 70.

    chopper

    June 12, 2018 at 8:54 am

    @Betty Cracker:

    Trump said Kim told him he (Kim) had been disingenuous with the “Clinton regime” and other US administrations, but that now Kim said he had a POTUS who is capable of “getting things done,” so the current agreement would not founder on empty promises like all the others.

    WASF.

  71. 71.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 8:58 am

    I’m just wondering when Trump is going to sign the pardon of Jarad’s father.

  72. 72.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 8:58 am

    Well this was unexpected! E tu T Boone? E Tu?

    Negotiating advice 101. When you want to make a deal real bad you will make a really bad deal. #SingaporeSummit

    — T. Boone Pickens (@boonepickens) June 11, 2018

  73. 73.

    Platonailedit

    June 12, 2018 at 9:00 am

    via bbc

    I had an uncle who was a great professor for, I believe, 40 years at MIT. And I used to discuss nuclear with him all the time.

    Discuss nuclear? Head/desk.

  74. 74.

    Jeffro

    June 12, 2018 at 9:01 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Ima gonna run those two side-by-side to every wingnut I know and see what their take is, ask them “how is this different?”

    I mean I already know that yesterday was far superior in every way simply because IT’S TRUMP, but still. I live for just those lil’ flashes of cognitive dissonance!

  75. 75.

    The Ancient Randonneur

    June 12, 2018 at 9:01 am

    Fox News on the subject of meeting dictators.

    https://mobile.twitter.com/JeffBlix/status/1006348023671263233/video/1

  76. 76.

    Spanky

    June 12, 2018 at 9:01 am

    @Baud: Rand Paul ( !! of all people) called out Graham on CNN.

    Rand Paul: Lindsey Graham a danger to country

    Situation Room
    Republican Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said his colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) is a “danger to the country” for suggesting that Congress sign an authorization to use military force against North Korea if President Trump and Kim Jong Un should fail to reach a diplomatic agreement.
    Source: CNN

    You guys are posting so fast that this may already have been in a comment I haven’t gotten to. Sorry.)

  77. 77.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 9:05 am

    @Cheryl Rofer: I want to say that that quote is from an SNL skit but I know it’s real because we have a madman in the White House. Sigh.

  78. 78.

    JPL

    June 12, 2018 at 9:05 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Did he prepare by watching films made by “Leni” Riefenstahl ?

  79. 79.

    The Dangerman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:05 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It appears that Trump has also ad-libbed an end to US military exercises with South Korea.

    I figure he’s gonna pull troops out of South Korea entirely. Wait for it.

  80. 80.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 12, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Platonailedit: Someone ask him what an atomic number is.

  81. 81.

    zhena gogolia

    June 12, 2018 at 9:06 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Wow, he was just in the WaPo crossword puzzle today. Weird.

  82. 82.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:06 am

    I would not want to be the US Forces Korea Commanding General right now. Or his Chief of Plans and Chief of Exercises!

    Getting weirder. After Trump apparently cancels military exercises at summit, USFK issues statement that it has"received no updated guidance on execution or cessation of training
    exercises” & plans to "continue with our current
    military posture" until updated

    — Motoko Rich (@motokorich) June 12, 2018

  83. 83.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 9:07 am

    @schrodingers_cat: Search “Odessa Steps” sequence.

  84. 84.

    jimmiraybob

    June 12, 2018 at 9:09 am

    Sooooooo……If I’m getting this right, we’ve gone from joint military exercises with our old allies Japan and South Korea to joint military parades with our new ally and BFF, North Korea. I sense the beginnings of a new military-parade race – which divine leader has the bigger …, uh, ego event. Invest accordingly. Mysterious ways indeed.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:11 am

    @chopper: Notice he calls the US government in the 1990s the Clinton Regime, but Kim’s government the government of North Korea. That’s just a wee bit backwards from the normal formulation.

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    June 12, 2018 at 9:12 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    There is no telling what will or won’t set him off. And he’s surrounded himself with some of the most bellicose advisors possible (Bolton, Navarro).

    Trump seems to deliberately look for things to be upset with and I think Bolton and Navarro are there to be Anger Translators. But it really seems like Trump only cares about having his ass kissed, so Kim and the NK could likely string Trump along for years that way.

  87. 87.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:13 am

    @Jeffro: A major difference is that President Clinton never met with Kim’s father. Never shook his hand. Never put the Stars and Stripes next to the DPRK flag. Never stated in public and in his presence that it was an honor to be with Kim’s father.

    Other than that, exactly the same thing.

  88. 88.

    Aleta

    June 12, 2018 at 9:14 am

    Josh Greenman
    @joshgreenman
    Trump on Kim: “His country does love him. His people, you see the fervor. They have a great fervor.”

    Daniel Dale @ddale8
    This is the most complimentary Trump has been about any foreign leader, and it’s not even close.

    Trump tells ABC that Trudeau’s news conference, in which he politely criticized Trump’s tariffs and promised retaliation, is “going to cost him a lot of money”

    Here’s the rest of Trump’s comments about Trudeau to ABC. Came after lots of praise of Kim. (None of the numbers in these comments are accurate.)
    https://mobile.twitter.com/ddale8/status/1006520266141454336/photo/1

    Motoko Rich @motokorich

    Getting weirder. After Trump apparently cancels military exercises at summit, USFK issues statement that it has”received no updated guidance on execution or cessation of training
    exercises” & plans to “continue with our current
    military posture” until updated

    Daniel Dale @ddale8

    “Yeah, he’s de-nuking. He’s de-nuking the whole place. It’s going to start very quickly.” Remarkable how the president is pretending Kim has committed to action

  89. 89.

    Soprano2

    June 12, 2018 at 9:15 am

    Trump also said Kim was “very talented” and complimented his ability to take over “a situation” like North Korea at age 26 and “run it tough,” alluding to a totalitarian regime with starvation and gulags and gruesome public executions as if he were discussing a callow real estate heir’s takeover of a bankrupt Fifth Avenue high rise.

    This was the first thing I heard on the radio when I woke up this morning, and it made me want to throw up. He talks like this about a horrible, repressive regime, and attacks Canada. Normal Republicans would be blasting someone for this, but they’ll fall all over themselves praising Trump. It’s sickening.

  90. 90.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:15 am

    @The Ancient Randonneur: Here you go:

    Fox News: Obama meeting with North Korea = bad. Trump meeting with North Korea = good. #TrumpKimSummit⁠ ⁠ pic.twitter.com/9zp13Bfk91

    — Jeff Blix (@JeffBlix) June 12, 2018

  91. 91.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 12, 2018 at 9:15 am

    The world is not watching, nor does it care about Doll Hair’s vanity project.

  92. 92.

    JMG

    June 12, 2018 at 9:17 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Pickens evidently belongs to the subset of truly wealthy people who despise Trump as a fake wealthy person, and hate that he has become an embodiment of wealth to the plebes. I have heard he is not donating nearly as much to Republicans this year as he has in the past, too.

  93. 93.

    Jeffro

    June 12, 2018 at 9:17 am

    Somewhat related: this is about the strongest, clearest denunciation yet of both Trumpov and his GOP enablers.

    Entitled, well, “A Quisling and His Enablers”

    Go get ’em, K-thug

    This is not a column about whether Donald Trump is a quisling — a politician who serves the interests of foreign masters at his own country’s expense. Any reasonable doubts about that reality were put to rest by the events of the past few days, when he defended Russia while attacking our closest allies.

    We don’t know Trump’s motivation. Is it blackmail? Bribery? Or just a generalized sympathy for autocrats and hatred for democracy? And we may never find out: If he shuts down the Mueller investigation and Republicans retain control of Congress, the cover-up may hold indefinitely. But his actions tell the story.

    As I said, however, this isn’t a column about Trump. It is, instead, about the people who are enabling his betrayal of America: the inner circle of officials and media personalities who are willing to back him up whatever he says or does, and the wider set of politicians — basically the entire Republican delegation in Congress — who have the power and constitutional obligation to stop what he’s doing, but won’t lift a finger in America’s defense.

    It’s important to understand that the fight Trump is picking with our allies isn’t about any real conflict of interest — because they are not, in fact, doing the things he accuses them of doing. No, Canada and Europe aren’t imposing “massive tariffs” on U.S. goods: A vast majority of U.S. exports enter Canada tariff-free, and the average European tariff is only 3 percent. These are simple facts, not disputable issues.

    So Trump is justifying his attempt to destroy the Western alliance by accusing our allies of misdeeds that exist only in his imagination.

    The same thing may be said about his claim that Canada’s Justin Trudeau somehow betrayed him and undermined the Group of 7 summit meeting. In reality, Trudeau’s remarks at the end of the conference were restrained and conventional, simply asserting — as any normal leader would — that he would defend his nation’s interests. The Trump rage-tweet that followed was responding to an insult that, like those “massive tariffs,” exists only in his imagination.

    But that’s Trump, a man whose presidency has been marked by around seven false statements per day in office. What about his officials?

    Well, they have been acting like the courtiers in the old story about the emperor’s new clothes. (The emperor’s new hairpiece?) If the boss says something whose falsity is obvious to anyone with eyes to see, they’ll claim to believe his version.

    So Larry Kudlow, the administration’s chief economist (actually “economist,” but that’s another story) went on TV to declare that Trudeau “stabbed us in the back.” Peter Navarro, the administration’s chief trade expert (“expert”) went even further, repeating the stab-in-the-back line and declaring that Trudeau faces a “special place in hell.”

    Remember when people used to imagine that Trump would be restrained by officials who would put some check on his worst impulses? Maybe that happened for a few months, but at this point he’s entirely surrounded by sycophants who will tell him whatever he wants to hear.

    Still, America isn’t a monarchy — not yet, anyway. Congress has the power to check a president who seems to be betraying his oath of office. It can even remove him; but short of impeachment, there are many ways members of Congress could act to constrain Trump and limit the damage he’s doing.

    But Congress is controlled by Republicans. And their response to a president whose actions are manifestly not just un-American but anti-American has been … a few sad tweets from a handful of senators who are unhappy about Trump’s behavior but not willing to do anything real. Most Republicans haven’t even gone that far: They’re just silent.

    Why are Republican politicians unwilling to discharge their constitutional responsibilities? Relatively few of them, one suspects, actually want a trade war, let alone a breakup of the Western alliance. And many of them, one also suspects, are well aware that a de facto foreign agent sits in the Oval Office. But they are immobilized by a combination of venality and cowardice.

    On one side, tax cuts for the rich have become the overriding priority for the modern G.O.P., and Trump is giving them that, so they’re willing to let everything else slide.

    On the other side, the party’s base really does love Trump, not for his policies, but for the performative cruelty he exhibits toward racial minorities and the way he sticks his thumb in the eyes of “elites.” So any Republican politician who takes a stand on behalf of what we used to think were fundamental American values is at high risk of losing his or her next primary. And as far as we can tell, there is not a single elected Republican willing to take that risk, no matter what Trump does.

    What all this tells us is that the problem facing America runs much deeper than Trump’s personal awfulness. One of our two major parties appears to be hopelessly, irredeemably corrupt. And unless that party not only loses this year’s election but begins losing on a regular basis, America as we know it is finished.

    There it is. It truly is a time of choosing – Flake, Collins, McCain, #NeverTrumpers, are you listening? Join us and fight hard, or the whole American experiment might just be over.

  94. 94.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:17 am

    @zhena gogolia: The Elders have authorized me to make the following statement at this time: “We cannot confirm or deny anything”.//

  95. 95.

    chopper

    June 12, 2018 at 9:18 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    of course. we all knew kim’s statements (or rather, his translator’s) would be deliberate and practiced for the occasion.

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:20 am

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: What’s interesting is that what he signed today is 180 degrees opposite of everything Bolton has ever argued for in US national security and foreign policy in general and in regard to the DPRK in specific. This is the point where you tender your resignation. Or it is the point where you would if you had any actual professional ethics and principles. Or any actual ethics and principles at all.

  97. 97.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:26 am

    Oy vey!

    POTUS tells ⁦@Greta⁩ that Kim Jong-un has “a great personality. He’s a funny guy, he’s very smart, he’s a great negotiator. He loves his people…” https://t.co/6TO6HHAdaw

    — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 12, 2018

    GRETA: But he’s starved them. He’s been brutal to them. He still loves his people?

    POTUS: Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it. But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.

    — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) June 12, 2018

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    June 12, 2018 at 9:33 am

    @Jeffro: Excellent analysis about R enablers in the Congress but what about the newspaper that Krugman writes for, why are they enabling the President* and they did so even during the campaign.

  99. 99.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 9:34 am

    @Jeffro: Flake and Collins could stop everything today by stating that they will caucus with the Democrats if McConnell doesn’t move the legislation that reflects their concerns forward immediately. Or they could tweet. Tweeting is fun.

  100. 100.

    Aleta

    June 12, 2018 at 9:36 am

    Sorry we can’t be friends with you any more Canada. Now we’re friends with North Korea. And they’re friends with China. Sorry everyone, China asked for “denuclearization of the peninsula and promoting and establishing a peace mechanism.” And Ivanka likes China too.

  101. 101.

    Jay C

    June 12, 2018 at 9:38 am

    @Soprano2:

    Normal Republicans would be blasting someone for this, but they’ll fall all over themselves praising Trump. It’s sickening.

    And how many “normal” Republicans are around (or at least in office) these days?

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    June 12, 2018 at 9:39 am

    Yeah folks…just imagine if Chelsea Clinton and her husband had made $82 MILLION while ‘ working at the White House’

    ……………………………

    If this were Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Congress would’ve set the entirety of Washington, D.C. on fire. https://t.co/5dupQmVKC4

    — shauna (@goldengateblond) June 11, 2018

  103. 103.

    Dupe1970

    June 12, 2018 at 9:39 am

    Agreement does not cover CBWs also.

  104. 104.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 9:40 am

    @Jay C: All of them are normal Republicans. We need to abandon the myth of the reasonable, principled Republican. Abandon it forever.

  105. 105.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 9:43 am

    @Kay: But Republicans in Congress will nominate King Trump for a Nobel Peace prize pronto.

  106. 106.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 9:44 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Trump sure loves him some killer dictators. I’ll give him that.

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    June 12, 2018 at 9:44 am

    Trudeau is gonna be @realDonaldTrump’s new “Obama.” He’s so jealous of both of them, because they have it all and he has nothing and he knows it. They also have the respect of their countrymen and women, and trump has nothing. And he knows it. He’s so jealous he can taste it.

    — @joboomr44 (@joboomr44) June 12, 2018

  108. 108.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 9:45 am

    Later in the interview POTUS says “I understand the past and, you know, nobody has to tell me, he’s a rough guy. He has to be a rough guy or he has been a rough person. But we got along very well. He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country…

    Trump loves himself some rough mens. Probably gives him a stiffy. And he naturally speaks the language of an abuser. “He loves his people, but sometimes they make him have to be rough with them.”

  109. 109.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 12, 2018 at 9:46 am

    Stephanie Ruhle, responding to Ron Insane’s long list of how trump’s bumbling is part of his isolationism that will weaken the US militarily and economically to the benefit of Chinea, to Bob Torricelli: “Where are the Republicans?”

    Torricelli: “Where are both parties?”
    Fuck you you worn out useless old fuck

  110. 110.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 9:47 am

    @Patricia Kayden: Of course they will nominate Trump for the Nobel. But he will not get it. It was foolish of the Institute to give it to Obama untested. I expect there will be no more “wishes are horses” peace prizes…. But Trump is working hard to increase the number of beggers.

  111. 111.

    Chris

    June 12, 2018 at 9:48 am

    @Ohio Mom:

    It helps that the party as a whole has decided that “democracy” was a dirty word in the last decade.

  112. 112.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 12, 2018 at 9:52 am

    @Immanentize: IIRC the nomination process consists of not much more than sending the committee a registered letter. There was some trolly attempt a few years back to start referring to I forgot which RW matinee idol as a “Nobel Peace Prize Nominee”, as if it were the Oscars.

  113. 113.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 12, 2018 at 9:53 am

    The stupid draft dodging motherfucker has basically abandoned the Korean people to tyranny.

  114. 114.

    sherparick

    June 12, 2018 at 9:58 am

    @Adam L Silverman: Kim and the PRNK got what they wanted big time, recognition on the international stage as an equal of the United States. China and Russia also got something huge, the beginning of the withdrawal of the United States as a major power in Northeast Asia and the Western Pacific. Whether they will be happy with the medium and long term consequences of that withdrawal (Japan and South Korea likely becoming nuclear powers), well sometimes the greatest curses are answered prayers. For South Korea, Moon has reduced the short range risk of war, a war where he knew Trump might provoke but prove to be a faithless ally when fighting it (Trump would fight to the last South Korean but probably would not deploy any U.S. ground troops as he nuked the country from one end to the other). I think better than most, he realized that Trump’s election meant the United States was broken after 8 November 2016 and that nothing could be trusted accept that Trump would act for his personnel short term desires for attention, flattery, and money, while his Nationalist Republican Base would follow and agree with anything he did. So he has cut the best short term deal he can. I expect he hopes to build enough ties to China to have it discourage North Korea from trying to use nuclear blackmail to reunite the Korean peninsula, while I expect the South Korean military to initiate its own secret crash program to develop the bomb. For that matter, Australia to might have to consider developing a bomb since relying on a United States for security that elects a Trump is being a fool. (By the way, this is something Germany’s governing coalition has not internalized yet as they think raising their defense budget is an appeasement of Trump, not realizing that with Trump, probably going forward with any Republican President, NATO is a dead letter as far as the United States defending any of its European allies (or should I say former allies)).

    Kim obviously promised nothing about giving up bombs or missiles. Actually, in that whole statement, there is nothing from the North Koreans but a promise to keep talking, which they are more than happy to do. But the whole Right-Wing Infotainment Complex, and not just Right-Wing (see NYT and Cable News) will be celebrating Trump as an historic peacemaker. Right-wingers always have this advantage when they do this kind of thing. The right wing media and politicians who would have savaged Barack Obama for meeting Kim, ending military exercises, and praising his regime, are of course praising Trump to high heaven for not getting anything like the deal Obama got from Iran, a deal they still say was the worst thing since Chamberlain’s Munich agreement.

    As for the interests of my country, I do not find the short term results from this summit a bad thing. My alternative would been containment and engagement, acknowledging the fact Kim would not give up his bombs, but might give up his missile tests in return for a relaxation of sanctions and a peace treaty, while maintaining the nuclear umbrella the South Korean and Japaneses alliances. Of course, such realism and acceptance of limitations on power are an anathema to the American political class. The tentative steps in that direction in the last years of Clinton administration were blown up by Bush, Cheney, and Bolton, and Obama never felt he could step back from the a goal, North Korea surrendering its bombs and destroying its bomb making technology, that could only be accomplished by war. Well, Trump has because he knows the Right will say everything he does is great, and the American Left, well that’s what we wanted anyway. So Trump gets his win and figurative triumphal media parade.

    Longer term, the danger for the U.S., will be the proliferation of nuclear weapons. At some point, as more and more country’s get them, one country or another will find itself in a conflict and think it has to use these bombs/missiles and lose them. Even if we are not the directly hit, we would feel the consequences from radiation of a couple hundred bombs going off in the same week and the indirect economic and climate effects will be catastrophic.

    As for the loss of our imperial position in East Asia, well, 40 years ago, and even 20 years ago, I would have thought such a thing itself catastrophic and threat to democracy and liberty and the liberal world order created by Roosevelt, Marshall, Truman, Eisenhower, Churchill, Atlee, Bevan, DeGaulle, and Acheson. Not so much now. The United States itself is a semi-kakistocracy with an ascendant White Nationalist Party, dominated by its will to power and money. Its cruelty, and stupidity, its corruption is symbolized by Trump. And 60% of the white population, 45% of the voting public, thinks its great. The world of 1946-2016, a good 70 years, is now gone. The authoritarian regimes, all with strong Nationalist and kakistocratic features, are becoming ascendant, with a Government (or Government aligned) media developing a cult of personality around the leader, whether Trump, Putin, Xi, Kim, Erdogan, or Orban.

    Trump I suspect admires must like the way Kim’s grandfather created a modern hereditary absolute monarchy out of a Communist State and probably hopes to emulate that example. Expecting a Congress dominated by Republicans and their Kakistocratic donors such as Kochs, Mercers, Ricketts, Menard, Uihlein, Freiss, Theil, Hendricks, etc. to check Trump is being a fool.

    Whether there is or is not a nuclear war the next thirty years, environmental catastrophes will mount and increasingly affect economic conditions. When bad things happen, enemies will be sought, as we see it U.S. where immigrants, particularly from South America and the Caribbean are identified as scapegoats and locked up in concentration camps, with children being permanently separated from their parents and locked up in gulags. Also, foreign enemies will be found (for Trump apparently democratic countries and erst-while allies are the preferred enemies).

    The Republican Party supports Trump because he his their instrument to power, almost complete power, over the country, which McConnell and Ryan have pretty much acknowledged, and the Republican Party is nothing if not a nationalist, will to power organization at this point. As Orwell wrote 73 years ago, and still true: “Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself (in Trump’s case Trump’s Nationalism is Trump) but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.” https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/notes-on-nationalism/

    Read the whole essay, along with Eric Hoffer’s “The True Believer” and you will at least understand what motivates are conservative brethren to say the crazy things they say, and do the crazy things they do.

  115. 115.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 9:59 am

    @Brachiator: Memo from Turner has always been spot-on about Trump:

    I remember you in Hemlock Road in nineteen fifty-six
    You’re a faggy little leather boy with a smaller piece of stick
    You’re a lashing, smashing hunk of man your sweat shines sweet and strong
    Your organs working perfectly but there’s a part that’s not screwed on
    Weren’t you at the Coke convention back on nineteen sixty-five?
    You’re the misbred, gray executive I’ve seen heavily advertised
    You’re the great, gray man whose daughter licks policemen’s buttons clean
    You’re the man who squats behind the man who works the soft machine

    Especially the penultimate line quoted above about Ivanka.
    And the last about Putin

  116. 116.

    JMG

    June 12, 2018 at 10:00 am

    Trump, unfortunately for us all, belongs to the majority opinion in our country on our foreign policy, to wit, the United States should enjoy all the privileges of a world empire without having to expend any of the blood or treasure that has always been required to maintain an empire. It’s the school of thought that hates our putative allies for defending their own interests, because US interests are the only ones that count. It also has a fatal corresponding belief that because the US is powerful, any of its wars will be short, cheap and easy to win.

  117. 117.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 10:00 am

    @Adam L Silverman:

    He saw what happened last month with Iran.

    There’s a weird inconsistency here. Trump is demanding that Iran give up its nukes and stop supporting terrorism. Trump let Kim promise to do something sometime maybe in the future.

    And he saw what happened over the weekend with America’s closest allies.

    Under Trump, the US does not have any allies except Netanyahu.

    Otherwise, countries are only entities to do deals with, and the deals have to be good for America.

  118. 118.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 10:01 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: This was my thought as well. Who stabbed whom in the back? So sorry, all people of both Koreas.

  119. 119.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 10:03 am

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yes, just last year there were fraudulent recommendations for Trump. But regardless of the Nobel committee, there will be a huge propaganda effort geared up regarding how Trump was insulted by the snooty Europeans….

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    June 12, 2018 at 10:03 am

    @rikyrah:

    Yeah folks…just imagine if Chelsea Clinton and her husband had made $82 MILLION while ‘ working at the White House’

    ……………………………

    If this were Chelsea Clinton and her husband, Congress would’ve set the entirety of Washington, D.C. on fire

    They would have done it on Day Two, with the both of them “working” there without genuine security clearances. Heck, just one ‘revision’ a la Jared’s 40-something revisions would have landed Chelsea in the guillotine.

  121. 121.

    D58826

    June 12, 2018 at 10:03 am

    MSNBC crawl has Der Fuhrer inviting Kim to the WH? WTF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  122. 122.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    June 12, 2018 at 10:15 am

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Give it 48 hours. The news consensus will become that Trump accomplished nothing. In some cases, he will be mocked for knuckling under to North Korea. Pretty soon, he’ll decide he needs to bluster again, and will look even stupider. This agreement will give Trump and the GOP no points except with extreme partisans who don’t care about reality. (Alas, most of the GOP.)

    Sorry, beg to differ. The “consensus” will be just the opposite: outside the rump of actual liberal media (and in some places, even there) this will be portrayed — and believed — by most as a huge and historic foreign policy “win” on the part of Trump. Maybe the biggest and best since Ronaldus Magnus caused the Berlin Wall to fall (yeah, I know).

    Not just by extreme right-wing partisans (and that’s what, roughly half the electorate?). The news media in general is desperate for Trump to appear “Presidential”, and they will latch onto this as evidence of such. Doesn’t matter what the reality is (as described in this post and many of the comments here). As long as we don’t somehow end up in a shooting war in Korea during Trump’s mis-administration (unlikely, I think) this Potemkin summit will be portrayed by most in the media — and thus believed by most Americans — essentially as that Pence tweet Cheryl Rofer linked to in her comment at #3.

    We’ll know better, but what fucking difference will that make?

  123. 123.

    sherparick

    June 12, 2018 at 10:18 am

    @Adam L Silverman: With Bolton, I already know the answer. The man’s patron was Jesse Helms, a genuinely evil person. The anti-Communist trope was always in service of White Supremacy. When being a hawk on Korea was a club to beat one’s domestic political enemies, e.g. Democrats, one used it. When giving away the farm boosts your authoritarian, white supremacist, celebrity President, you give away the farm.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    June 12, 2018 at 10:19 am

    @Villago Delenda Est: Meh.

    He had a photo-op. He doesn’t care about what comes next.

    [HHGTTG] DON’T PANIC! [/HHGTTG]

    147 days to go…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 10:19 am

    @Aleta: Great news!! For Putin, of course. The Puppet is doing excellent work.

  126. 126.

    Platonailedit

    June 12, 2018 at 10:19 am

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I talk cyber with my son. I talk nuclear with my uncle.

    Lying po of ignoramus.

  127. 127.

    cmorenc

    June 12, 2018 at 10:21 am

    Yet again, a GOP president will leave the next Dem President huge messes that will take most of their term in office to clean up, except with Trump it may take two decades to rebuild from the smoking wreckage, and even then it will leave deep, lasting scars.

  128. 128.

    JMG

    June 12, 2018 at 10:23 am

    @Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot: I am not so sure of this. Most Americans don’t even think about domestic politics more than a couple seconds a day. Forget foreign policy unless there’s a war scare. The status quo with North Korea is fine with them, so Trump will get credit for agreeing to it. Tariffs that raise prices and cost jobs would probably influence more voters than a photo op. Look, it’s very simple. Trump’s sole source of information is cable news. Cable news loves stories with pictures. This meeting had lots of pictures, so of course the networks loved it.

  129. 129.

    rikyrah

    June 12, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    He.is.a.MORON.

  130. 130.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 10:25 am

    @JMG:

    It’s the school of thought that hates our putative allies for defending their own interests, because US interests are the only ones that count.

    This is like the Delian League, where ancient Athens turned allies into vassals.

    It also has a fatal corresponding belief that because the US is powerful, any of its wars will be short, cheap and easy to win.

    Trump likes having a big military, but he might be too much a coward to actually use it.

  131. 131.

    Immanentize

    June 12, 2018 at 10:29 am

    @Brachiator:

    but he might be too much a coward to actually use it.

    From your typing fingers to the FSM’s noodley appendages

  132. 132.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 12, 2018 at 10:31 am

    @JMG: Most Americans don’t even think about domestic politics more than a couple seconds a day. Forget foreign policy unless there’s a war scare. The status quo with North Korea is fine with them, so Trump will get credit for agreeing to it. Tariffs that raise prices and cost jobs would probably influence more voters than a photo op

    Yup.

  133. 133.

    Another Scott

    June 12, 2018 at 10:32 am

    @Platonailedit: The uncle stuff struck me. NewYorker from 2016:

    In his answers, he seldom sounds as ungrounded as when he invokes Professor Trump, the younger brother of his father, Fred. “My uncle used to tell me about nuclear before nuclear was nuclear,” Trump said in one interview, “before nuclear” referring, perhaps, to the development of hydrogen bombs, rather than basic atomic bombs (which occurred when Donald was about six years old), or perhaps just to that netherworld where things wait until Trump judges them to be fashionable or flashy enough to exist.

    BI from 2017:

    Trump insisted that he did remember the name of the widow’s husband, La David Johnson, one of four US soldiers who was killed in an ambush in Niger earlier this month, during the phone call. Trump said his account was correct because he has “one of the great memories of all time.”

    That’s why he doesn’t need people taking official notes, you see.

    BBC, from today:

    Five quotes from an extraordinary presser

    After signing an agreement with Kim Jong-un scant on detail, President Trump held an extraordinary press conference where he held court as reporters fired questions.

    In case you missed it, here are some of the memorable, and frankly, jaw-dropping, things he said.

    On North Korean prisoners: “I think they are one of the great winners today.”

    On military exercises with South Korea: “We will be stopping the war games which will save us a tremendous amount of money… Plus I think it is very provocative.”

    On the need to check notes from his meeting: “I have one of the great memories of all time. I don’t have to do that.”

    On apologising if things don’t go as planned: “I think he’s gonna do these things. I may be wrong. I may stand before you in six months and say, hey, I was wrong,” he said, before adding: “I don’t know that I’ll ever admit that. But I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”

    On why he thinks experts are wrong about denuclearisation taking 15 years: “I think whoever wrote that is wrong… There will be a point at which when you are 20 percent through you can’t go back. I had an uncle who was a great professor for, I believe, 40 years at MIT. And I used to discuss nuclear with him all the time. He was a great expert. He was a great brilliant genius.”

    It’s the same construction. His brain is stuck.

    His MIT uncle died in 1985 – 33 years ago.

    He’s got dementia, and it’s getting worse.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 10:34 am

    @Amir Khalid: Which is what we should expect with anything Trump “accomplishes”. Only when we know the details, will we know how bad this deal is for the U.S. and South Korea.

  135. 135.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 12, 2018 at 10:34 am

    I don’t think Rubio’s smart enough to throw this kind of shade, and I don’t think he wants to

    Christina Wilkie Retweeted Marco Rubio
    New: Rubio slams North Korean leader Kim Jong-un as “a total weirdo” with no talent who “inherited his family business.”
    Hard to read the “family business” part without hearing a little shade being thrown at Trump, who also inherited his family business from his dad.

    and in any case: Waddaya gonna do about it, Senator?

  136. 136.

    Patricia Kayden

    June 12, 2018 at 10:36 am

    @D58826: You’re surprised? Kim is exactly the type of authoritarian douche that Trump adores. He cusses our allies like Prime Minister Trudeau and puts out the red carpet for dictators who kill their own citizens.

  137. 137.

    Platonailedit

    June 12, 2018 at 10:37 am

    Wondering how Mattis is going to react to Trump's troop comments.

    I'm convinced Trump accidentally appointed Mattis because his nickname is "Mad Dog" and he has some catchy one-liners, then discovered — possibly to his dismay — that Mattis was actually qualified for the job.

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 12, 2018

    Yet another adult in charge fail.

  138. 138.

    japa21

    June 12, 2018 at 10:38 am

    I was struck by the similarities between Trump’s speech today and Obama’s after the Iran deal was signed. Remember Obama praising the Ayatollah as a good man, sure rough but he had to be? Remember how everybody praised Obama for being nice to the Ayatollah?

  139. 139.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    June 12, 2018 at 10:42 am

    @Platonailedit: I’m convinced Trump accidentally appointed Mattis because his nickname is “Mad Dog”

    Not a doubt in my mind on that score

    Wondering how Mattis is going to react to Trump’s troop comments.
    I’m guessing something like this but with a lot more ‘what the fucks!’ thrown in

    Caitlin Collins @ kaitlancollins
    Army Col. Chad Carroll, a spokesman for U.S. Forces Korea, says they’ve “received no official updated guidance on execution or cessation on any upcoming training exercises.”

  140. 140.

    Aleta

    June 12, 2018 at 10:44 am

    Months before Trump and Kim met in Singapore, experts began to call attention to a festering bilateral issue: The two sides did not share the same definition of “denuclearization,” despite the fact that this was the subject of the summit.
    (—)
    Paradoxically, failing to clearly define the talks’ objective was what allowed diplomacy to proceed, because each side could believe — or say it believed — that its objectives were in sight.

    That approach to denuclearization hit a speed-bump when Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, called for Pyongyang’s “Libya-style” disarmament. (–) The summit was briefly canceled after the Bolton fracas; when it was rescheduled, neither side again attempted a clear “denuclearization” definition.
    (—)
    The week before the summit, the Trump administration still did not have an internal working definition. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested a phrasing that combined the U.S. and North Korean interpretations. The U.S. side had still not secured a substantive pledge from North Korea to denuclearize on the eve of the talks. The joint statement reportedly commits the parties to “work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula” — a phrase that elides both interpretations without clarifying objectives. Definitional vagaries allowed Washington and Pyongyang to get to the summit despite the odds, and to slip out of it without concrete progress on the central goal. The loophole remains big enough for a road-mobile ICBM.
    (–)
    After the summit was called off and rescheduled, the administration tapped three veteran Asia experts to negotiate directly with the North Koreans in hopes of crafting a quick framework agreement. (–) But the White House did not give the team the political backing needed to extract concessions, and the team did not include any arms control or nuclear experts.

    The National Security Council … did not convene once in advance of the summit, suggesting the president had received little guidance or backing from top aides. Just hours before it began, leaders from each side still did not have complete agendas.
    (–)
    Real diplomatic opportunities may have been lost in the pandemonium.
    (–)
    After Bolton’s “Libya model” gaffe the U.S. side began to dilute its objectives. What was once a one-shot meeting became the beginning of a process; the objective of unilateral disarmament was transformed into a mission of building relationships. The president emphasized the importance of establishing chemistry and building bilateral ties, making it clear that he craved a positive interpersonal interaction. He even mitigated his own hyperbole, reducing his prediction of a “terrific” outcome to only a “modified success.”
    (–)
    Kim kept the summit on track when it was nearly doomed, bolstering his domestic and international legitimacy. In the process, he made no meaningful concessions and won the cancellation of U.S.-South Korean military exercises.

    Meanwhile, China and South Korea are already easing up on economic sanctions. The multilateral nature of those sanctions helped bring North Korea to the table. With Trump increasingly isolated from the United States’ traditional allies, it will be difficult for him to muster the coordinated international political will to keep that pressure on.

    Mira Rapp-Hooper, Wa Post

  141. 141.

    J R in WV

    June 12, 2018 at 10:50 am

    @Aleta:

    Now we’re friends with North Korea. And they’re friends with China. Sorry everyone, China asked for “denuclearization of the peninsula and promoting and establishing a peace mechanism.” And Ivanka likes China too.

    And why shouldn’t we be BFF friends with China?

    They pay us the most, so far!!!!

    Russia can’t really afford us, honestly. So Sad!

  142. 142.

    rikyrah

    June 12, 2018 at 10:52 am

    The Obama primary is underway | Analysis by CNN’s Chris Cillizza https://t.co/95NUQ5mjVJ pic.twitter.com/JHfAxz4azi

    — CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 12, 2018

  143. 143.

    J R in WV

    June 12, 2018 at 10:54 am

    @Chris:

    It helps that the [Republican] party as a whole has decided that “democracy” was a dirty word in the last decade.

    It’s because the Republicans can’t tell the difference between the word democracy and the word Democratic…. right? I dunno any mo’!

  144. 144.

    jimmiraybob

    June 12, 2018 at 11:08 am

    Remember the really really olden days. a year or two ago, when Republicans and conservatives used to use Neville Chamberlain as the supreme devil of appeasement toward Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy?. Man, those were the days.

    “Appeasement in an international context is a diplomatic policy of making political or material concessions to an aggressive power in order to avoid conflict.” – Wikipedia

    Someone with the keys should add, “and/or to get a photo-op for an election.”

  145. 145.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 11:25 am

    @Immanentize:

    Memo from Turner has always been spot-on about Trump:

    Yeah, I agree with you here. I also get the images from Jagger singing this in Performance when I think about Trump.

    @japa21:

    Remember how everybody praised Obama for being nice to the Ayatollah?

    No, I don’t remember that at all.

  146. 146.

    Spinoza Is My Co-Pilot

    June 12, 2018 at 11:33 am

    @JMG:

    Most Americans don’t even think about domestic politics more than a couple seconds a day. Forget foreign policy unless there’s a war scare. The status quo with North Korea is fine with them, so Trump will get credit for agreeing to it.

    Oh, I don’t believe most Americans will give much thought to Trump’s summit, not at all. But what thought they do give to it will be heavily influenced by the mainstream media, who have every incentive to portray it largely as Pence did in his Dear Leader Twitter encomium. For what it’s worth, Trump will get “credit”, which is the point I was making in disagreeing with Frankensteinbeck’s take.

  147. 147.

    Aleta

    June 12, 2018 at 11:35 am

    @Another Scott: He got played. We talk about Kim wanting recognition on the world stage, but all Tr wanted was for the world to watch him drive up and shake hands, and to pay attention to him in the moment. Well, no — he also wanted to make video moments of himself for election ads. And a movie of himself to watch over and over in the WH theater.

    Robert E Kelly @Robert_E_Kelly

    Post-presser, let’s just say it: Trump is a dove on North Korea. There is nothing ‘strong’ about the following: 1. Gave the summit for nothing. 2. Ducked human rights. 3. Gave up milex with S Korea for no concrete concession. 4. Declared desire to remove USFK, also for nothing reciprocally defined. 5. Kicking around a peace treaty, also tied to no specific concession. 5. Criticized SK as cheap-skates, bc Guam-based bombers are costly. Apparently jet-fuel is so expensive, it’s worth casting aside a 60-year ally and friend. (Try to imagine Fox’s response if Obama had said something that petty.) Abe worried that Trump would throw Japan under the bus over short-range missiles. Actually he’s doing that to South Korea. If we don’t get something enormous for all this, this is very depressing.

    (Kelly is that political science professor/int’l relations scholar at Pusan Nat’l University made famous by his small children, when they barged in during a BBC interview last year.)

  148. 148.

    bluefish

    June 12, 2018 at 11:47 am

    So … The Kid rolled The Dotard. Shocking surprise, eh? At least now, after all this speed-dating, we can go back to waging ware with our Canadian friends. Priorities, always. Double Freeze Proposal, right? Thought Nicky Haley shot this down as any kind of smart move some months ago. Oh well, just one more thing we’ll have to forget.

    Love how Trump insists on calling JMEs “war games.” He loves the 80s even though I doubt he knew what to do with them.

  149. 149.

    Ohio Mom

    June 12, 2018 at 11:55 am

    @japa21: There is subtext to just about everything said on this planet, even more so when whatever has been said is uttered in the service of diplomacy.

    Obama was doing a dance, telling white lies to move things along. Trump is gushing like a young teen talking about her rock star idol.

    No, I don’t expect most people will get this, many people will have only a very superficial understanding. They will note — or nod knowingly when it is pointed out to them — that Obama’s and Trump’s words were very similar. But most of the world’s leaders are smarter than that.

  150. 150.

    chopper

    June 12, 2018 at 12:09 pm

    @Aleta:

    trump, like his voters, believes in cargo cult politics. to them, shaking hands and waving your arms around and general talks about nothing at all in front of the cameras is how things get done, rather than nuts-and-bolts diplomacy. you just act like a leader on TV acts and you win everything.

  151. 151.

    Brachiator

    June 12, 2018 at 12:23 pm

    @Aleta:

    Post-presser, let’s just say it: Trump is a dove on North Korea. There is nothing ‘strong’ about the following: 1. Gave the summit for nothing. 2. Ducked human rights. 3. Gave up milex with S Korea for no concrete concession. 4. Declared desire to remove USFK, also for nothing reciprocally defined. 5. Kicking around a peace treaty, also tied to no specific concession. 5. Criticized SK as cheap-skates, bc Guam-based bombers are costly. Apparently jet-fuel is so expensive, it’s worth casting aside a 60-year ally and friend. (Try to imagine Fox’s response if Obama had said something that petty.) Abe worried that Trump would throw Japan under the bus over short-range missiles. Actually he’s doing that to South Korea. If we don’t get something enormous for all this, this is very depressing.

    This is a very good summary from Robert E Kelly. Thanks for this.

    Again, it seems clear that Trump doesn’t see allies or friends, or thinks that past relationships count for much. Nations are just leaders we make deals with, and all prior agreements are null and void if Trump doesn’t like them. And nobody gets a break based on past relationships.

  152. 152.

    Villago Delenda Est

    June 12, 2018 at 12:29 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The spineless twunt will do nothing. Rubio is utterly worthless. Oxygen is being wasted keeping his worthless ass alive.

  153. 153.

    Shell

    June 12, 2018 at 1:36 pm

    destroying a major missile testing site but “we didn’t put it in the agreement because we didn’t have time.”

    Where the fuck did he have to go? He could have used that excuse to buzz out of the G7 early…but here? An urgent golf game? Did he want to visit Kudlow in the hospital?
    **************
    So Kim says they were ‘disengenous’ dealing with the Clinton regime. Whats their excuse over the eight years of the Bush regime?
    ********
    Questions, questions, questions! Is it too early to start drinking?

  154. 154.

    TenguPhule

    June 12, 2018 at 1:40 pm

    @Baud:

    I agree that it’s better that our country look bad for this reason than our country start a nuclear war to feed an old man’s ego.

    You seem under the confused impression that the two will remain separate events.

  155. 155.

    TenguPhule

    June 12, 2018 at 1:41 pm

    @Another Scott:

    But this long overdue meeting was a good thing.

    No, it was not. Really. No, just no.

    It only gets worse from this point on.

  156. 156.

    TenguPhule

    June 12, 2018 at 2:37 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Remember when they remade the movie Karate Kid 25 years later? That’s what this is:

    A shitty remake taken over by China?

  157. 157.

    Citizen Alan

    June 12, 2018 at 3:11 pm

    @JMG:

    It also has a fatal corresponding belief that because the US is powerful, any of its wars will be short, cheap and easy to win.

    Said as we approach our 17th year in Afghanistan.

  158. 158.

    Adam L Silverman

    June 12, 2018 at 3:27 pm

    @TenguPhule: Jackie Chan is a martial arts movie deity! You shut your mouth!!!

  159. 159.

    TenguPhule

    June 12, 2018 at 7:45 pm

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Jackie Chan is a martial arts movie deity! You shut your mouth!!!

    Kung Fu is not Karate.

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