Loving Kim Jon Un means never having to say he’s sorry
by digby
WALLACE: All right. I want to squeeze two more things in. President Trump talks about his close relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong- un. Here’s just one example.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We go back and forth, and then we fell in love, OK?
(LAUGHTER)
No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. And they’re great letters. We fell in love.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: But there are now reports that after the failed Trump-Kim summit in Hanoi that you attended, that Kim had some of the key members of his negotiating team for that failed summit, some of them were executed and others were sent to prison camps.
First of all, from the intelligence you have, is that true? And secondly, given all of that, does the president still feel he’s in love with Chairman Kim?
MULVANEY: First thing’s first. I don’t believe we’ve confirmed that yet and I’m not going to speak about classified information that we may or may not have on that issue here. So let’s just assume for sake of this discussion that those reports are true. There’s still — having a relationship with a person — and you heard the president’s language and for those of us who know the president, and we do, that’s — that’s his manner, that’s how he speaks.
And to have a good working relationship with somebody, with anybody, how is that ever a bad thing? How is having the ability to pick up the phone or write a letter, as the president referenced, and talk to another world leader, regardless of what they might be doing domestically or internationally, how is that a bad thing? We think that it helps the dialogue going forward.
WALLACE: Even if he’s – even is he’s a brutal dictator? Even if he kills members of his regime, let alone the people in his country?
MULVANEY: Chris, what’s the central issue right now of North Korea? Why are we engaged North Korea? Because we’re concerned about them having nuclear weapons. We do not want that to happen.
We do not want people who might even be accused of doing what Kim Jong-un is accused of doing to have nuclear weapons. That’s why the president is doing this. Keep in mind, it’s going slower than we expected but foreign policy is not about short-term political gains, it’s about global and national US security. That’s how we’re addressing this.
Having a good working relationship with somebody is never a bad thing.
They have the nuclear weapons. And it’s clear they aren’t going to give them up for some golf course and beachfront condo deals cooked up by Trump. That’s Trump’s pitch. That’s all he’s got.
That’s nice. But Trump doesn’t seem to have the same approach to other perceived enemies, like Castro or Maduro. Or allies, which he treats like utter shit just to show his twisted base that he’s a tough guy. His relationship to these favored strongmen is entirely dependent on whether or not they are telling him to his face what he wants to hear and feting him with a lot of pomp and public flattery. There’s no sort or long term strategy or even a solid belief system. It’s just who has kissed his ass or, in the case of Putin, intimidated him in some way.
He listens to no one and nothing but his own lizard brain that signals his pleasure and fear center. There’s nothing more to it than that.
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