Trump Concerned North Korea Summit Could Evolve Into An Embarrassment

US President Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for Space Policy Directive 1, with the aim of returning Americans to the Moon, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, December 11, 2017.... US President Donald Trump speaks during a signing ceremony for Space Policy Directive 1, with the aim of returning Americans to the Moon, in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC, December 11, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / SAUL LOEB (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump is becoming increasingly concerned that his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un could evolve into a political embarrassment, The New York Times reported Sunday.

According to foreign officials and people from the Trump administration who spoke with the Times, Trump was shocked by the statement from North Korea’s head nuclear negotiator last week that indicated total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was not going to happen.

The President has reportedly been talking to aides about whether he should move forward with the historic meeting. On Saturday night, he called South Korean President Moon Jae-in — the Washington Post was first to report — to discuss the North’s latest statement and why it was in contradiction with private conversations Moon has had with Kim. Officials told the Times that the call, just three days before Moon was set to travel to Washington, D.C., is a signal of Trump’s unease surrounding the meeting.

According to aides who spoke with the Times, Trump has made no specific indication that he is planning to pull out of the talks, but officials are concerned that Trump has been too publicly eager about the meeting — like his remark that “everyone thinks” he should win a Nobel Peace Prize for the historic summit.

Trump is set to meeting with Kim in Singapore next month.

Read the Times’ full report here.

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Notable Replies

  1. This turn of events was completely unforeseeable.

    Said no sane or rational person anywhere.

  2. Trump was shocked by the statement from North Korea’s head nuclear negotiator last week that indicated total denuclearization of the Korean peninsula was not going to happen.

    The President has reportedly been talking to aides about whether he should move forward with the historic meeting. On Saturday night, he called South Korean President Moon Jae-in — the Washington Post was first to report — to discuss the North’s latest statement and why it was in contradiction with private conversations Moon has had with Kim.


    The U.S. has “no ability” to build sources in North Korea and very limited opportunities to gather intelligence in North Korea

    “Since we have no embassy there, we have no diplomatic relations with them, no real commercial interchange with them,” there is little concrete information to offer policymakers, the former official said.

    Told someone this earlier, but seeing how the U.S, doesn’t have any reliable HUMINT sources in the DPRK, its going to be funny (at least to me) to watch rage tweet the South Korean government (who Trump is relying on for intel), next month.

  3. It’s only a “historic summit” because other Presidents weren’t stupid enough to believe the lies and have one.

  4. Avatar for litho litho says:

    Why then he’d share the feeling the rest of us have had since Nov. 2016…

  5. Because.
    Everything.
    Is.
    Always.
    All.
    About.
    Him.

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