WaPo: Trump Team Boasting About N. Korean Hostages Could Threaten Their Release

(FILES) This combination of file photos created on March 9, 2018 shows US President Donald Trump speaking during a retreat with Republican lawmakers at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland on January 6, 2018 (L) and Nort... (FILES) This combination of file photos created on March 9, 2018 shows US President Donald Trump speaking during a retreat with Republican lawmakers at Camp David in Thurmont, Maryland on January 6, 2018 (L) and North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un delivering a statement in Pyongyang in a photo taken on September 21, 2017 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on September 22, 2017. US President Donald Trump agreed on March 8, 2018 to a historic first meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in a stunning development in America's high-stakes nuclear standoff with North Korea. / AFP PHOTO / KCNA VIA KNS AND AFP PHOTO / - AND Saul LOEB / South Korea OUT / REPUBLIC OF KOREA OUT ---EDITORS NOTE--- RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO/KCNA VIA KNS" - NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS THIS PICTURE WAS MADE AVAILABLE BY A THIRD PARTY. AFP CAN NOT INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, LOCATION, DATE AND CONTENT OF THIS IMAGE. THIS PHOTO IS DISTRIBUTED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED BY AFP. / (Photo credit should read SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images) MORE LESS
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President Donald Trump and his attorney Rudy Guiliani’s off-the-cuff and misleading remarks on television and social media regarding ongoing negotiations for the release of U.S. hostages in North Korea may put those individuals at risk, the Washington Post reported.

By commenting publicly and inaccurately on sensitive backchannel negotiations, experts told the Post, the Trump administration may increase the hostages’ value and push the North Korean regime to demand more concessions for their release.

Earlier this week, Trump tweeted about the three American prisoners currently being held in a North Korean labor camp. Though two of the hostages were taken since Trump came into office, he mistakenly blamed the Obama administration for failing to secure their release. And, in his usual reality TV style, the President told his followers to “stay tuned!”

On Friday, he boasted to reporters that “a lot of good things have already happened with respect to the hostages,” and again told the nation to “stay tuned.”

Meanwhile, Giuliani said in a bombshell interview on Thursday on Fox News that the American prisoners would be freed by the end of the day. This did not come to pass.

Giuliani later admitted that he was not privy to inside information about the negotiations and had not even spoken to Trump about it.

Foreign policy and intelligence experts told the Washington Post that such remarks may push Kim Jong Un to set a higher price for the release of the prisoners.

“The more public you make it and the more you say something is going to happen that has not happened, it creates leverage for no reason,” said Jung Pak, a former CIA official who now works as an Asia analyst for the Brookings Institution. “It’s not going to get us anything, and it draws criticism that you are politicizing the detainees.”

 “It would be best to be circumspect in discussions like this,” Pak emphasized. “We’re talking about real lives.”

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Notable Replies

  1. By commenting publicly and inaccurately on sensitive backchannel negotiations, experts told the Post, the Trump administration may increase the hostages’ value and push the North Korean regime to demand more concessions for their release.

    Kim: We want free iPhones, Internet and cable TV. Oh, and copies of all Stormy Daniels DVDs’

    tRump: aka The World’s Finest Negotiator and Deal Maker™ Done!
    And we’ll give you Amazon Prime Free for a year, an entry to Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes and Hawaii too. Just treat me fairly and write a nice letter to the Committee of Nobles Prizes.

  2. Hey Flood
    Having any second thoughts
    These two blabbermouth boobs will derail your career and may even get you in trouble.
    There’s probably a nice Wall Street job somewhere were you an avoid the spotlight

  3. Avatar for sanni sanni says:

    “4 dimensional chess” played by dodos who can’t even draw a tic tac toe board.

  4. “…he mistakenly falsely blamed the Obama Administration …”

    Fixed.

    Please fix in the story too.

  5. Though two of the hostages were taken since Trump came into office, he mistakenly blamed the Obama administration for failing to secure their release.

    Sorry, but given his past behavior, he is lying. He hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt. In fact he has shown that he doesn’t deserve any benefit of the doubt. If he wasn’t lying in this instance, then he was bullshitting. He didn’t “mistakenly blame”…He recklessly and falsely blamed…

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