Month: October 2017

This happened even before todayby digby

It appears that Trump’s frantic tweeting “Crooked Hillary did it! Crooked Hillary did it!” didn’t have the desired effect. As of yesterday, Trump has a 33% approval rate and a 62% disapproval rate. This is a new low.

In so many ways.

I do think there’s a good chance that Trump himself will skate on all this because everyone will believe him when he says he knew nothing of this and didn’t understand that he needed to vet his campaign advisers.

Being a fucking moron could work for him.

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QOTD: Lewandowskiby digby
It’s always somebody else’s fault. Trump had no obligation to vet his campaign manager or even notice that he happened to have been working for a bunch of sleazy oligarchs and tyrants for decades. That was all public record.

Corey Lewandowski said Monday the FBI should have notified him that Paul Manafort was under suspicion when he joined the Trump campaign. 

“He was under a FISA warrant, supposedly, both before and after his tenure at the campaign and the FBI never notified the leading presidential candidate for a major Republican Party race? Never notified him of a potential problem? This is a problem with the FBI, if you ask me.”

F-ing moron.

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Meanwhile in Bizarroworldby digby
If you watch Fox News last night the big story was how the government, the press and the Democrats are all conspiring to cover up Hillary’s Russia scandal with this Trump witch hunt. I’m not kidding.

You might think that special counsel Robert Mueller unsealed two indictments and a guilty plea from three former Trump campaign staffers because he has uncovered evidence of crimes — including one Trump adviser who lied to the FBI about his communications with a Russian cutout about stolen Hillary Clinton emails.

But on Monday night Sean Hannity revealed what’s really going on.

Mueller acted, according to Sean Hannity, to “distract” Americans from Sean Hannity’s television program.

“Don’t think this is a coincidence,” Hannity said. “Last week right here on this program, we had stunning revelation after revelation, day after day, about Hillary Clinton, Uranium One, the fake news dossier.”

Why would this compel Mueller to act? Because Sean Hannity was exposing Mueller as complicit in these “crimes,” according to Sean Hannity.

“[S]pecial counsel Mueller is clearly complicit in the Uranium One scandal. Remember, he was the FBI director. The FBI informant had all the evidence of bribes and kickbacks and money laundering and he did nothing. So now they need to change the narrative after a very bad week and distract the country from their evidence and their involvement in possible collusion,” Hannity explained.

The Uranium One “scandal” involves the purchase of a Canadian company by a state-owned Russian entity. The allegation is that Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, approved the sale in exchange for donations to the Clinton Foundation from Uranium One investors. Clinton, however, did not have the power to approve or block the transaction and nearly all of the donations to the Clinton Foundation were made prior to Clinton becoming secretary of state.

Mueller’s alleged complicity relates to his role as FBI director at the time of the Uranium One transaction. Around that time, the agency was investigating a separate case involving a trucking company that paid kickbacks to Russian officials. In recent days, Hannity and other right-wing figures have argued this makes Mueller complicit in the fake scandal.

This Hannity argues, is what Americans should be talking about, not the court documents filed by Robert Mueller.

“Tonight we have a major crisis in this country. Does America have equal justice under the law? It appears tonight the answer is no,” Hannity said.

Judgment Day
by digby

Ryan Lizza on the Manafort indictment raises the central question that would be asked if any other man but Donald Trump had hired him: what in the hell kind of terrible judgment does this show in a presidential candidate?

Paul Manafort and the dirty world of Ukrainian politics were naturally simpatico: the former is a skilled political consultant for hire who, it is now alleged, had a penchant for hiding the extent of his income from U.S. authorities; the latter is a cynical and deeply corrupt universe in which offshore accounts and tax-evasion schemes make up the system’s basic essence. Manafort was a natural in that world, helping his client Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former President, play up ethnic and linguistic cleavages (remind you of another campaign?) until he was ultimately deposed, in mass protests, in 2014. One imagines that Yanukovych, for whom Manafort worked from roughly 2006 until 2014, according to the indictment, and who kept an ostrich zoo and a garage full of antique cars at his illegally privatized residence outside of Kiev, didn’t always pay in fully transparent and properly declared bank transfers. That much, in fact, we have known for some time.

Last year, when I was reporting a story for the magazine on a pair of journalists turned parliamentarians in Ukraine, one of the piece’s subjects—a prominent Ukrainian investigative journalist named Sergii Leshchenko—showed up at a meeting with a stack of papers. These were secret ledgers, Leshchenko told me, detailing off-book illegal payments by Yanukovych and his party for all sorts of services. They also included twelve million dollars in payments to Manafort. (The Times had published an article on the ledgers in August, 2016.) “It’s the dark side of politics,” Leshchenko told me. Today that dark side was made a shade lighter. Today’s indictment is a reflection of how corruption in one country rarely stays there but leaks out into the global financial system, where ill-gotten cash can make its way from the Ukrainian treasury to Brooklyn real estate. Manafort likely believed that what happened in Kiev would stay in Kiev. And maybe it would have, if it weren’t for his work for Trump, and his latest client’s unexpected victory—and the scrutiny that followed. Today it’s possible that Manafort is wishing his last, and greatest, political-campaign triumph didn’t turn out so lucky.

It’s not as though we didn’t know that Trump’s campaign manager had spent his life working on behalf of oligarchs and despots (or that trump himself was a fraud and a serial sexaul assaulter.) We knew. Everyone knew. And everyone knew that Trump had the judgement of a turnip.

Half the voters in this country DID NOT CARE. That is the reality that everyone wants to evade in order to protect our “democracy” and perpetuate the insane notion that the American voters are the wisest, warmest most generous people in the world and we must always respect their “common sense” and offer them empathy for whatever outside forces “make” them vote for someone like Donald Trump. I’m sorry, these people are deplorable. And look where we are because of it.

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Influence campaign in full effectby digby

Uhm no. Here’s Marcy Wheeler:

As I laid out, the indictment against Paul Manafort is meant to embarrass him, but still pave the way for him to flip. That’s the carrot, if an indictment stripping the money laundered suits off Manafort’s back can be said to be good news. 

The bad news is this guilty plea, for false statements, by campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, signed on October 5, but only unsealed today. That plea makes it clear that 1) the campaign had, as an explicit goal, making friends with Russia 2) a month and a half before the June 9 Trump Tower meeting, Russian handlers dangled the stolen Hillary emails 3) Papadopoulos has cooperated beyond what has been laid out in the guilty plea. 

As the plea lays out, Papadopoulos learned in early March he’d be a foreign policy advisor to the Trump campaign. Within weeks, a professor fresh off a trip to Moscow started cultivating him, and introduced him to a woman pretending to be Vladimir Putin’s niece. After meeting that handler, Papadopoulos attended a meeting with Trump and others where he explained “he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin. The plea makes clear that Papadopoulos kept the campaign in the loop on his “outreach to Russia.”
And it makes it clear that on April 26 — three days before the DNC figured out Russia had hacked them — Papadopoulos’ handler told him Moscow had dirt on clinton.

The Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS that on that trip he (the Professor) learned that the Russians had obtained “dirt” on then-candidate Clinton. The Professor told defendant PAPADOPOULOS, as PAPADOPOULOS later described to the FBI, that “They [the Russians] have diret on her”; “the Russians had emails of Clinton”; “they have thousands of emails.” 

After learning the Russians had emails on Clinton even before Clinton learned it, Papadopoulos “continued to correspond with Campaign officials,” including his Senior Policy Advisor and a High-Ranking Campaign Official. (One of these may be Manafort.) 

In response, the campaign decided to send someone low level “so as not to send any signal.” 

It turns out, Papadopoulos lied about some of this the first time he spoke with the FBI about it on January 27. For example, he claimed he learned about the emails before he joined the campaign, trying to pretend that he didn’t learn about them only because he had just been named a top advisor. 

Papadopoulos must be a fucking idiot, because a number of his communications with his Russian handlers were on Skype, a PRISM provider. Though he tried to stop using his communications immediately after his second FBI interview, which is a bit too late.
My favorite part of the plea his the last paragraph:

On July 27, 2017, defendant PAPADOPOULOS was arrested upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport. Following his arrest, defendant PAPADOPOULOS met with the Government on numerous occasions to provide information and answer questions. 

I’m betting the FBI asked him about this detail, from a March 31 meeting. 

On or about March 31, 2016, defendant PAPADOPOULOS attended a “national security meeting” in Washington, D.C., with then-candidate Trump and other foreign policy advisors for the Campaign. When defendant PAPADOPOULOS introduced himself to the group, he stated, in sum and substance, that he had connections that could help arrange a meeting between then-candidate Trump and President Putin. 

Here’s what that meeting looked like: 

You’ll note that Attorney General Jeff Sessions was at the meeting as well…

I’m guessing this plea is going to make flipping far more attractive to Paul Manafort. Because Manafort now knows that the government knows that the campaign knew about Hillary’s emails well before that June 9, 2016 meeting.

About that Russian recusal …

Stay tuned and bookmark Marcy’s site for further analysis.

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Will he flip?
by digby

My column for Salon got spiked today because the Manafort indictment came down too early. Damn it. Anyway, here it is, even though we now know exactly who was indicted, it’s still at least a little bit relevant:

So, that was quite a week-end of excited speculation, wasn’t it? Everyone in the political world was like five year olds on Christmas eve, so frantic they couldn’t sleep waiting to see what presents they had under the tree. Santa,of course, is Special Counsel Robert Mueller whose Grand Jury CNN reported late on Friday night had returned at least one indictment in the Russia probe.

A federal grand jury in Washington on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter…

On Friday, top lawyers who are helping to lead the Mueller probe, including veteran prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were seen entering the court room at the DC federal court where the grand jury meets to hear testimony in the Russia investigation.

Reporters present saw a flurry of activity at the grand jury room, but officials made no announcements.
Shortly after President Donald Trump abruptly fired then-FBI Director James Comey, Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel. Mueller took the reins of a federal investigation that Comey first opened in July 2016 in the middle of the presidential campaign.

That announcement came at the end of a week that saw the Trump campaign go to Defcon 1 with their coordinated propaganda campaign to investigate Hillary Clinton’s “real Russia scandal” and somehow force Robert Mueller to resign or be fired. (You can read about it in my Friday column.) It seemed to be going quite well, with the mainstream media eagerly “asking questions” and the hysteria rapidly ratcheting up with multiple announcements of congressional investigations into Hillary Clinton and the Wall Street Journal editorial page demanding that Robert Mueller step down. Predictably, Democrats were beginning to break the line to start condemning Clinton, giving cover to Trump by helping them create a false competing narrative that she was the one who had colluded with Russia.

Fox News gamely kept campaigning through the week-end with Trump’s favorite host (after Hannity) Judge Jeanine Pirro letting it all hang out, proclaiming “It’s time, folks. It’s time to shut it down, turn the tables, and lock her up. That’s what I said. I actually said it. Lock her up.”

Trump himself let fly on Sunday morning with a barrage of tweets presumably aimed at Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the congressional Republicans demanding that they “do something!”:

Never seen such Republican ANGER & UNITY as I have concerning the lack of investigation on Clinton made Fake Dossier (now $12,000,000?),….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017

…the Uranium to Russia deal, the 33,000 plus deleted Emails, the Comey fix and so much more. Instead they look at phony Trump/Russia,….

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017

…”collusion,” which doesn’t exist. The Dems are using this terrible (and bad for our country) Witch Hunt for evil politics, but the R’s…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017

…are now fighting back like never before. There is so much GUILT by Democrats/Clinton, and now the facts are pouring out. DO SOMETHING!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 29, 2017

These tweets were so provocative that the president’s lawyer Ty Cobb was forced to make a statement declaring, “his tweets today are not, as some have asked, a reaction to anything involving the Special Counsel with whom the White House continues to cooperate.” Evidently there were some people who thought the president saying publicly that the investigation was a witch hunt and exhorting people to “do something” might fit the pattern of obstruction of justice that we’ve seen since the day he took office. Imagine that.

The president’s hysterical tweet storm and his lawyers attempts to dial it back notwithstanding, the right’s febrile excitement changed to anxiety almost instantly upon the news that indictments were coming down as soon as today. Everyone spent the week-end wondering who it might be. Experienced prosecutors expected that it was probably someone the prosecutors hoped to persuade to cooperate for a lesser charge and that could be anyone. Others speculated that it must be one of the big names — Flynn, Kushner or Manafort, the latter most likely because he had already been informed by the Special prosecutor’s office that they were seriously looking at indictment.

We will soon know the details. The New York Times and the Washington Post were unable to corroborate this story and the Mueller team have been totally tight lipped until now so it’s also possible that there are no indictments. But assuming that it’s true, one detail in the CNN story is worth taking a closer look at: “top lawyers who are helping to lead the Mueller probe, including veteran prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, were seen entering the court room at the DC federal court where the grand jury meets.” If Andrew Weissman was there is indicates that they are playing hardball regardless of who they have decided to indict.

As Betsy Woodruff of the Daily Beast reported last August, Weissman is a very, very hard charging prosecutor known for his “take-no-prisoners” approach to white collar crime. He was among those who prosecuted Enron and personally handled the Arthur Anderson case which resulted in the dissolution of the company. He indicted the whole enterprise for obstructing justice by destroying documents and won a conviction which was later overturned by the Supreme Court. Weissman argued later that the ruling would not hobble prosecutors from making similar obstruction charges because the congress has subsequently passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, although there are some who believe that the case resulted in prosecutors pulling their punches in the wake of the financial crisis a few years later.

But Weissman also has another specialty. He has a particular talent for “flipping” witnesses, which he honed in the Brooklyn US Attorney’s office prosecuting organized crime with colleague George Stamboulidis. According to Reuters:

In 1997, he and trial partner George Stamboulidis brought down one of the country’s most powerful mob bosses, Vincent “the Chin” Gigante, with the help of turncoat witnesses.

“We cut our teeth in the organized crime section,” said Stamboulidis, now in private practice. “And the only way you can make those cases is to get people to cooperate, even when the oath of Omerta (a Mafia code of silence and non-cooperation with authorities) was strong and in full play.”

How that talent might be used in this Russia probe is anyone’s guess, but we know already that a number of the players are implicated in money laundering and various financial crimes that may or may not be linked to Russia. If one wanted to “flip” someone to gain cooperation in understanding a larger conspiracy, this is the sort of crime an aggressive prosecutor would use as leverage. For what it’s worth, Woodruff reported that federal prosecutors who had worked with Weissman in the past believed that the early morning raid on Manafort’s condo had his name written all over it.

In any case, Weissman’s presence in the courthouse on Friday does indicate that something important went down. He maintains a reputation for being a decisive, focused prosecutor who moves fast and with the Republicans getting progressively more hysterical by the day, Mueller may believe he’s the best man to get this investigation to the next level quickly.

Seeing daylight?
by Tom Sullivan

On Monday we will find who in GOP believes in rule of law and who believes in rule of Trump. I fear the answer.— Max Boot (@MaxBoot) October 29, 2017

Are we starting to see some daylight between GOP regulars and the man in the white castle?

House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC) on Sunday said he would encourage Republican colleagues who are calling for an end to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election to “give the guy a chance to do his job.”

“Do you support any effort to either curtail or end the Mueller investigation?” Chris Wallace asked Gowdy on “Fox News Sunday.”

“I don’t, and I readily concede I’m in an increasingly small group of Republicans,” Gowdy said. “I think Bob Mueller has a really distinguished career of service to our country.”

Maybe Gowdy is just hedging his bets in case things look as if they are headed south today. The charges expected today might not be related in any way to the sitting president, even if they are filed against current or former colleagues. If arrests come today, they will still ruin his Monday. And probably Gowdy’s, whoever ends up in custody. Then we’ll see if any others in his caucus put daylight between themselves and the White House.

The odds are the indictment today will not be on charges central to the collusion investigation. But it might be. Paul Manafort’s financial dealings with the Russians are clearly drawing attention. Money laundering has long been suspected. Buzzfeed reports that several of his wire transfers from overseas have come under scrutiny:

These transactions — which have not been previously reported — drew the attention of federal law enforcement officials as far back as 2012, when they began to examine wire transfers to determine if Manafort hid money from tax authorities or helped the Ukrainian regime close to Russian President Vladimir Putin launder some of the millions it plundered through corrupt dealings.

The new revelations come as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation is tightening, with reports that an indictment may already have been issued. It is not known if Manafort has been charged, or if he ever will be. Manafort has been the subject of multiple law enforcement and congressional inquiries. A spokesperson for Manafort would not comment for this story about the investigation or any of the specific transactions, but Manafort has previously denied wrongdoing.

David Atkins notes there was no other reason for the Trump campaign to hire Manafort in the first place:

Manafort was a terrible choice for campaign manager, both in terms of competence and optics. It was neither a pick designed to buoy his populist credentials, nor was it a sop to the GOP establishment that Trump desperately needed at the time. The only thing Manafort had in his favor was his close ties to Putin, and there is no conceivable reason to have hired him except to leverage those ties.

The president and the White House worked hard(?!) last week and over the weekend both at redirecting the public narrative away from the president. That, in addition suggesting the allegations his campaign had dealings with the same Russian government behind the hacking of the DNC are without merit.

The question, of course, is what a “malevolent toddler” might do in response to public charges against one of his close associates. Firing Mueller would be beyond the pale, which is why it is not beyond him.

If they fire Mueller, we take to the streets. Pass it on.— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 28, 2017

I don’t know if Trump will try to fire Mueller, but if he does I expect the reaction will be absolutely explosive https://t.co/UQeAs7Yepe— Chris Hayes (@chrislhayes) October 28, 2017

Milano’s tweet above is likely a reference to MoveOn’s preparing its members for rapid response (complete with printable placards) in the event of a Mueller firing:

Donald Trump is publicly considering firing special counsel Robert Mueller, the person leading the Department of Justice investigation of possible illegal actions by Donald Trump and members of his presidential campaign, and the efforts to conceal those activities.

This would be a constitutional crisis for our country. It would demand an immediate and unequivocal response to show that we will not tolerate abuse of power from Donald Trump.

Our response in the minutes and hours following a power grab will dictate what happens next, and whether Congress—the only body with the constitutional power and obligation to rein Trump in from his rampage—will do anything to stand up to him.

That’s why we’re preparing to hold emergency “Nobody is Above the Law” rallies around the country in the event they are needed.

(Honestly, I’ve been carrying around a cheap pot and wooden spoon in the back of the car for weeks should a “pots and pans revolution” suddenly break out.)

He's going to lose all but the Tea Party wackjobs if he makes a move on Mueller.

Short term chaos, faster impeachment. https://t.co/U5aD63IL6A— Angry WH Staffer (@AngrierWHStaff) October 29, 2017

That’s when this reality show will really have jumped the shark.

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Request a copy of For The Win, my county-level election mechanics primer, at tom.bluecentury at gmail.

They’re burning the dead in Puerto Ricoby digby

Evidently, the low “body count” that Trump says Puerto Rico should be so proud of is completely phony. No surprise. It never made any sense. But the cover up is really twisted because it means that the families of the dead won’t qualify for aid.

The Puerto Rican government told BuzzFeed News Friday that it allowed 911 bodies to be cremated since Hurricane Maria made landfall, and that not one of them were physically examined by a government medical examiner to determine if it should be included in the official death toll.

Every one of the 911 died of “natural causes” not related to the devastating storm, said Karixia Ortiz Serrano, a spokesperson for the Department of Public Safety who is also speaking for the Institute of Forensic Sciences — which is in charge of confirming hurricane deaths. The “natural causes” designations were made by reviewing records, not actually examining the bodies, she said.

The government’s revelation comes after BuzzFeed News reported earlier Friday that directors of funeral homes and crematoriums in two municipalities were permitted by the government to burn the bodies of many people the directors thought died as a result of the hurricane — without a government pathologist examining the corpses first to determine if they should be counted in the official death toll.

The current death toll stands at 51. Twenty of those official deaths were cremations.

The death toll has become a critically important indicator of how relief efforts are going — because President Trump made it one. It is also important for families of victims to claim federal relief aid.

It’s so hard to believe that this has happened and the president and it’s about 27th on the list of Trump administration atrocities.

Once again, as I say every day —

The Republicans don’t really care about deficits? Say it ain’t so!
by digby

It’s very easy for Republicans to demagogue deficits when Democrats are in charge. That’s what they do. And then the minute they get in power they cut the hell out of taxes for the rich and run up the debt because they really don’t care about it. They know that all the hand-wringing about it is ridiculous anyway and is only useful as a weapon to use against the other side. They cut programs and cut more taxes and basically give away as much as they can to their wealthy overlords for as long as they retain power and then when the Democrats take over, as they often do after the economy tanks, they start ranting about the debt again and keep the Democrats from enacting programs that help people whenever they can. This cycle has been going on for nearly 40 years now.
And lookee here:

House Republicans are so desperate for a win on taxes that they’re agreeing to proposals that would have caused internal party warfare just a year or two ago.

They’re considering forgoing a big cut in the top income tax rate on the rich, offering moderate-income Americans so many tax breaks that many would be excused from paying taxes entirely and passing a potentially 1,000-page tax bill few have seen within a matter of weeks. Last week, they agreed to a budget that ignored their demands for deep cuts in federal spending just so they could pass a tax bill using a special procedure that enables them move forward without any Democratic votes.

It’s an open question whether Republicans will be as flexible when party leaders release their entire tax bill, due Nov. 1, and everyone can see exactly who will be the losers under their plan. They already have some internal battles, with Republicans from high-tax states fighting a proposal to dump a long-standing deduction for state and local taxes.

But for now, once-controversial proposals are barely causing a stir, a sign lawmakers are willing to move beyond their party’s orthodoxy on taxes and into a more freewheeling debate on how to rewrite the code.

“The American people want us to get to ‘yes’ on tax reform,” said Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio), who sits on the tax and budget committees.

It’s an indication of the pressure lawmakers feel to produce a win ahead of next year’s midterm elections after spending seven fruitless months trying to rescind the Affordable Care Act. Many are terrified at the prospect of facing voters next year with nothing to show for their time in power.

Even notoriously balky House conservatives are making nice.

“We’ve got to get the economy going — it’s all about wages going up — and if I can endure some short-term pain for long-term benefits, I’m willing to do that,” said Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), head of the chamber’s staunchly conservative Freedom Caucus.

This has nothing to do with Trump. They would do this no matter who was in office. It’s just that it’s particularly hilarious that they are now reduced to pretending they care about wages going up, which they suddenly see as subject to some Keynesian stimulus.

It’s just pathetic but in Right Wing Bizarroworld it’s all perfectly logical.

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Mattis is the sane one. And he just said the North Korea threat is accelerating.by digby

We’re spending all our time batting back ridiculous GOP scandal mongering and waiting for Mueller. Meanwhile, back in the real world, this is happening:

U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Saturday the threat of nuclear missile attack by North Korea is accelerating.

In remarks in Seoul with South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-moo at his side, Mattis accused the North of illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear programs — and vowed to defeat any attack.

Mattis said North Korea engages in “outlaw” behavior and that the U.S. will never accept a nuclear North.

He added that regardless of what the North might try, it is overmatched by the firepower and cohesiveness of the decades-old U.S.-South Korean alliance.

“North Korea has accelerated the threat that it poses to its neighbors and the world through its illegal and unnecessary missile and nuclear weapons programs,” he said, adding that U.S.-South Korean military and diplomatic collaboration thus has taken on “a new urgency.”

“I cannot imagine a condition under which the United States would accept North Korea as a nuclear power,” he said.

As he emphasized throughout his weeklong Asia trip, which included stops in Thailand and the Philippines, Mattis said diplomacy remains the preferred way to deal with the North.

“With that said,” he added, “make no mistake — any attack on the United States or our allies will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons by the North will be met with a massive military response that is effective and overwhelming.”

Mattis’ comments did not go beyond his recent statements of concern about North Korea, although he appeared to inject a stronger note about the urgency of resolving the crisis.

While he accused the North of “outlaw” behavior, he did not mention that President Donald Trump has ratcheted up his own rhetoric. In August, Trump warned the North not to make any more threats against the United States, and said that if it did, it would be met with “fire and fury like the world has never seen.”

Song, the South Korean minister, told the news conference that he and Mattis agreed to further cooperation on strengthening Seoul’s defense capabilities, including lifting warhead payload limits on South Korean conventional missiles and supporting the country’s acquisition of “most advanced military assets.” He offered no specifics and refused to answer when asked whether the discussions included nuclear-powered submarines.

Some South Korean government officials have endorsed the nation getting nuclear-powered submarines amid calls for more military strength. There’s a growing concern among the South Korean public that North Korea’s expanding nuclear weapons arsenal, which may soon include an intercontinental ballistic missile that could target the U.S. mainland, would undermine Seoul’s decadeslong alliance with Washington.

South Korea’s conservative politicians have also called for the United States to bring back tactical nuclear weapons that were withdrawn from the Korean Peninsula in the 1990s, which they say would make clearer the U.S. intent to use nukes in a crisis. But Mattis and Song were strongly dismissive of the idea.

“When considering national interest, it’s much better not to deploy them,” said Song, adding that the allies would have “sufficient means” to respond to a North Korean nuclear attack even without placing tactical nukes in the South. Mattis said current U.S. strategic assets are already providing nuclear deterrence and that the South Korean government has never approached him with the subject of tactical nukes.

Also discussed in the meeting were the conditions under which South Korea would be given wartime operational control of its forces. Currently, if war with the North broke out, the South’s forces would operate under the U.S.-led U.N. Command.

Trump entered office declaring his commitment to solving the North Korea problem, asserting that he would succeed where his predecessors had failed. His administration has sought to increase pressure on Pyongyang through U.N. Security Council sanctions and other diplomatic efforts, but the North hasn’t budged from its goal of building a full-fledged nuclear arsenal, including missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland.

If Trump sticks to his pledge to stop the North from being able to threaten the U.S. with a nuclear attack, something will have to give — either a negotiated tempering of the North’s ambitions or a U.S. acceptance of the North as a nuclear power.

North Korea has been a nuclear power since 2006. So what it sounds like here is that the US plans regime change, which, in the wake of Iraq and Libya — and now Trump’s bellowing about Iran too — has set Kim Jong Un on this accelerated path.

It might have happened no matter who won. But nobody could be worse that Trump in trying to manage it. He says his is the only decisions that matters and that he is “tougher and stronger” than his advisers.

I don’t know what will happen but this is what keeps me up at night.

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