Kim/Trump Summit Disaster

[Dill]

Saw the Greg Gutfeld show this weekend. His guests were incensed that Dems would run Cohen hearings while something as important as a de-nuclearlization summit was running. I think that was bad timing--though I don't pretend that it made much difference.

Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to North Korea summit failure
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump-idUSKCN1QL03L

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the Democrats’ decision to interview his longtime fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong Un may have contributed to the North Korea summit ending with no deal.

[GMDino]

(03-04-2019, 03:00 PM)Dill Wrote: Saw the Greg Gutfeld show this weekend. His guests were incensed that Dems would run Cohen hearings while something as important as a de-nuclearlization summit was running.  I think that was bad timing--though I don't pretend that it made much difference.


Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to North Korea summit failure
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump-idUSKCN1QL03L

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the Democrats’ decision to interview his longtime fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong Un may have contributed to the North Korea summit ending with no deal.

Wasn't he supposed to testify weeks earlier but it got delayed because Trump tweets threats to his family?

[*Nately120*]

(03-04-2019, 03:00 PM)Dill Wrote: Saw the Greg Gutfeld show this weekend. His guests were incensed that Dems would run Cohen hearings while something as important as a de-nuclearlization summit was running.  I think that was bad timing--though I don't pretend that it made much difference.


Trump says Cohen hearing may have contributed to North Korea summit failure
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-trump-idUSKCN1QL03L

SEOUL (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday that the Democrats’ decision to interview his longtime fixer, lawyer Michael Cohen, on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong Un may have contributed to the North Korea summit ending with no deal.

Wait...Trump actually said that democrats prevented HIM, the master negotiator, from making a DEAL!?  Wow.

[jj22]

Well at least he admitted it was a failure, and he didn't walk away because it was a bad deal like so many tried to praise him for.

Now maybe some of his supporters on this board will agree to the obvious.

[Dill]

(03-04-2019, 03:19 PM)GMDino Wrote: Wasn't he supposed to testify weeks earlier but it got delayed because Trump tweets threats to his family?

Very doubtful.  Fox commentators would have mentioned that

[Dill]

In Trump's view, Kim has not been elevated, gained greater international legitimacy, from the summits--at least according to Bolton.

Transcript: National security adviser John Bolton on "Face the Nation," March 3, 2019
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-national-security-adviser-john-bolton-on-face-the-nation-march-3-2019/

MARGARET BRENNAN: Before the president went to Hanoi was the U.S. aware that North Korea would not allow anything beyond the Yongbyon complex? I mean the second uranium enrichment site that the president nodded to in his press conference. Did you know that was not on the table?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well we don't know what's on the table from- from North Korea until it comes out of the mouth of Kim Jong Un, the chairman. He's calling--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well that's the diplomats are supposed to be laying the groundwork for. So the president doesn't walk away with a failure.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: He- he didn't walk away with a failure. Unless you're prepared to say that it would be better to accept a bad deal than to walk away from no deal, to me that's a success.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you thought that nothing else was on the table. You were just testing the prospects by sending the president to Hanoi?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: No, no, no. We- we honestly didn't know. I mean it's- it's not unusual in these circumstances to find that there are additional concessions that the other side might make. But we've tried to make it clear to them- as again the president has said this repeatedly we're not going to make the mistakes of past administrations. We're not going to make the mistake that Obama made in the Iran nuclear deal. What we want is denuclearization broadly defined as the president himself laid out for Kim Jong Un in the paper that he gave him.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So- but you've tested this proposition now of what it's like to negotiate top down?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well we've had two- we've had two meetings.

MARGARET BRENNAN: This is now the- what- fourth commander in chief to try to do this? There's a very different approach but the success rate hasn't been anything more than in the past.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well the success rate in the past was zero. So that's not a hard bar to overcome. There's a- there's an argument that proceeding deductively rather than inductively makes a lot of sense. We've had two meetings. We-we'll see what happens next.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But in the meantime, as we say, they can still produce nuclear fuel. And as you saw after the president left Hanoi, Kim Jong Un stayed there. I mean he was walking around touring hot spots in Vietnam. He no longer looks like a pariah. Didn't he gain from this?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: I don't think that's the president's view at all.

MARGARET BRENNAN: He sat across from the president almost as if an equal.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: He- he did that in Singapore. The president's view is he gave nothing away.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But do you actually believe that?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: The president's view is he gave nothing away. That's- that's what matters, not my view. As I've said before, I guess I can't get people to listen so I'll try it one more time, I'm the national security advisor. I'm not the national security decision maker.


So Bolton does not say what HE believes.

[Dill]

This article addresses a point that get lost in the "good to walk away from a bad deal" mantra.

It is not good to set yourself up for a bad deal, especially if you are president. In this article, Trump doesn't take all the blame, though.

Experts: 'Experience Matters' in Negotiating With North Korea
https://www.voanews.com/a/experts-experience-matters-in-negotiating-with-north-korea/4810437.html
WASHINGTON —

The American team’s lack of experience in negotiating with North Koreans, as well as a lack of preparation, may have contributed to the collapse of this week’s Hanoi summit between Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, who favors top-down diplomacy, according to experts.

‘Top-down approach to negotiating’

“This was the risk you take when you do a top-down approach to negotiating,” said Dennis Wilder, the National Security Council’s senior director for East Asia affairs during the George W. Bush administration. “In other words, clearly, an agreement hadn’t been made before the men got to Hanoi.”

Wilder said Kim misjudged Trump and “overplayed his hand” and “overreached in the negotiations,” thinking that he could “get something big for putting very little on the table,” which was based on his previous experience in dealing with Trump, who was “quite easy on the North Korean leader and did not demand a great deal of him” at the first summit.

“The failure of the Hanoi summit shows the downside of top-down diplomacy,” Manning said. “I would have insisted on having the basic framework and some minimal nuclear-for-benefit trade-off agreed to before I agreed to a summit.”

Hill said, “I think it kind of speaks to some of the preparation, which I thought was inadequate.”

He added, “There needs to be a clearer understanding about [reaching agreements prior to talks] before they ask the president, before the president gets involved.”
.................
I can add one more point to this: if some smaller agreements or concessions or whatever had been made before hand by both sides, then both would have been able to list "accomplishments" and conveyed a sense of progress, steps forward taken, and that time had been well spent for both parties, instead of just Kim, who, like Putin, has the president's trust over his own intel services now.

Other presidential teams preparing summits have understood this from the get go.

[BmorePat87]

(03-04-2019, 04:38 PM)Dill Wrote: In Trump's view, Kim has not been elevated, gained greater international legitimacy, from the summits--at least according to Bolton.

Transcript: National security adviser John Bolton on "Face the Nation," March 3, 2019
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/transcript-national-security-adviser-john-bolton-on-face-the-nation-march-3-2019/

MARGARET BRENNAN: Before the president went to Hanoi was the U.S. aware that North Korea would not allow anything beyond the Yongbyon complex? I mean the second uranium enrichment site that the president nodded to in his press conference. Did you know that was not on the table?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well we don't know what's on the table from- from North Korea until it comes out of the mouth of Kim Jong Un, the chairman. He's calling--

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well that's the diplomats are supposed to be laying the groundwork for. So the president doesn't walk away with a failure.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: He- he didn't walk away with a failure. Unless you're prepared to say that it would be better to accept a bad deal than to walk away from no deal, to me that's a success.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So you thought that nothing else was on the table. You were just testing the prospects by sending the president to Hanoi?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: No, no, no. We- we honestly didn't know. I mean it's- it's not unusual in these circumstances to find that there are additional concessions that the other side might make. But we've tried to make it clear to them- as again the president has said this repeatedly we're not going to make the mistakes of past administrations. We're not going to make the mistake that Obama made in the Iran nuclear deal. What we want is denuclearization broadly defined as the president himself laid out for Kim Jong Un in the paper that he gave him.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So- but you've tested this proposition now of what it's like to negotiate top down?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well we've had two- we've had two meetings.

MARGARET BRENNAN: This is now the- what- fourth commander in chief to try to do this? There's a very different approach but the success rate hasn't been anything more than in the past.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: Well the success rate in the past was zero. So that's not a hard bar to overcome. There's a- there's an argument that proceeding deductively rather than inductively makes a lot of sense. We've had two meetings. We-we'll see what happens next.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But in the meantime, as we say, they can still produce nuclear fuel. And as you saw after the president left Hanoi, Kim Jong Un stayed there. I mean he was walking around touring hot spots in Vietnam. He no longer looks like a pariah. Didn't he gain from this?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: I don't think that's the president's view at all.

MARGARET BRENNAN: He sat across from the president almost as if an equal.

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: He- he did that in Singapore. The president's view is he gave nothing away.

MARGARET BRENNAN: But do you actually believe that?

AMBASSADOR BOLTON: The president's view is he gave nothing away. That's- that's what matters, not my view. As I've said before, I guess I can't get people to listen so I'll try it one more time, I'm the national security advisor. I'm not the national security decision maker.


So Bolton does not say what HE believes.

Bolton is a huge ideologue, but he's incredibly experienced in the work of the state department. It's crazy that he'd be a willing participant in this embarrassing shit show for purely partisan reasons. 

[jj22]

Bfine was right to wait. It didn't take the Warmbiers long to turn on their deceased son and fall in line with Trump and the Republicans to let Kim off. Now it's just a matter of time before they join the Republican Convention to blame the Dems and Clinton. #Ottowept.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmaker-wont-introduce-resolution-blaming-kim-jong-un-for-students-death/ar-BBUnjRr?ocid=ientp

[Dill]

(03-05-2019, 12:37 PM)jj22 Wrote: Bfine was right to wait. It didn't take the Warmbiers long to turn on their deceased son and fall in line with Trump and the Republicans to let Kim off. Now it's just a matter of time before they join the Republican Convention to blame the Dems and Clinton. #Ottowept.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/lawmaker-wont-introduce-resolution-blaming-kim-jong-un-for-students-death/ar-BBUnjRr?ocid=ientp

I didn't see where they turned on their son. 

It sounds like they just don't want a lot publicity drama, which I understand.

[jj22]

(03-05-2019, 07:56 PM)Dill Wrote: I didn't see where they turned on their son. 

It sounds like they just don't want a lot publicity drama, which I understand.

They don't want the public drama? They let Trump use them for 2 years without raising a concern. They had no problem when Trump used their son to attack Obama for not "rescuing" him. Or took credit for getting him out etc.

Only time they wanted "to avoid public drama" is now that Trump has exonerated Kim. Go figure. Cause they can't speak ill of Trump. Hopefully my parents wouldn't flip flop so quickly if something like that happened to me. I think it's disgraceful. You'd think they'd want a resolution from the American government to condemn Kim.

[Dill]

(03-06-2019, 10:36 AM)jj22 Wrote: They don't want the public drama? They let Trump use them for 2 years without raising a concern. They had no problem when Trump used their son to attack Obama for not "rescuing" him. Or took credit for getting him out etc.

Only time they wanted "to avoid public drama" is now that Trump has exonerated Kim. Go figure. Cause they can't speak ill of Trump. Hopefully my parents wouldn't flip flop so quickly if something like that happened to me. I think it's disgraceful. You'd think they'd want a resolution from the American government to condemn Kim.

Actually, they did speak out against Trump, once the summit was over. 

Also, were my son incarcerated in NK, I would not "speak out" against whoever was president for attacking Obama.

I don't really see any ground here for criticizing the parents.

[jj22]

(03-06-2019, 12:01 PM)Dill Wrote: Actually, they did speak out against Trump, once the summit was over. 

Also, were my son incarcerated in NK, I would not "speak out" against whoever was president for attacking Obama.

I don't really see any ground here for criticizing the parents.

I think the fact they are now behind the scenes stopping the American government from formally blaming Kim, proves that Trump has gotten in contact with them and they are now on board with exonerating Kim. Regardless of their initial statement.

Hopefully if this happened to your son you wouldn't go to that extreme to protect Kim from getting blamed.

And yes they were all in on attacking Obama for it, so this "they don't want publicly" doesn't go over with me. That's just the excuse they use now to protect themselves from having to criticize Trump (which in their initial statement they made sure not to do, or even mention him).

They've lost my support for so quickly falling in line at the expense of their sons legacy. Politics over Country, Politics over family. People's politics changes everything.

[Dill]

(03-06-2019, 12:11 PM)jj22 Wrote: I think the fact they are now behind the scenes stopping the American government from formally blaming Kim, proves that Trump has gotten in contact with them and they are now on board with exonerating Kim. Regardless of their initial statement.

Hopefully if this happened to your son you wouldn't go to that extreme to protect Kim from getting blamed.

And yes they were all in on attacking Obama for it, so this "they don't want publicly" doesn't go over with me. That's just the excuse they use now to protect themselves from having to criticize Trump (which in their initial statement they made sure not to do, or even mention him).

They've lost my support for so quickly falling in line at the expense of their sons legacy. Politics over Country, Politics over family. People's politics changes everything.

I guess I missed them attacking Obama. I haven't seen any reports on what they are doing behind the scenes. 

[*bfine32*]

(03-06-2019, 10:36 AM)jj22 Wrote: They don't want the public drama? They let Trump use them for 2 years without raising a concern. They had no problem when Trump used their son to attack Obama for not "rescuing" him. Or took credit for getting him out etc.

Only time they wanted "to avoid public drama" is now that Trump has exonerated Kim. Go figure. Cause they can't speak ill of Trump. Hopefully my parents wouldn't flip flop so quickly if something like that happened to me. I think it's disgraceful. You'd think they'd want a resolution from the American government to condemn Kim.

There's really only one thing disgraceful and it's your overt judgement of this family and the primary reason for your doing so.
 

[jj22]

Forgive me if I find it odd that parent's whose son was tortured would be fighting against a resolution to condemn Kim after Trump exonerated him. At first they released a statement saying it was Kims fault. So what changed? "Someone" must have got to them and the fell right in line.

I shouldn't be shocked tho. People choose politics over country as well as family.

But I'll exonerate Kim if that's the family's wishes.

Like I said, I'd hope my parents would stand for me. But like you said, there are people who think that is disgraceful of me to hope for, and I accept that.

[*michaelsean*]

(03-06-2019, 04:48 PM)jj22 Wrote: Forgive me if I find it odd that parent's whose son was tortured would be fighting against a resolution to condemn Kim after Trump exonerated him. At first they released a statement saying it was Kims fault. So what changed? "Someone" must have got to them and the fell right in line.

I shouldn't be shocked tho. People choose politics over country as well as family.

But I'll exonerate Kim if that's the family's wishes.

Like I said, I'd hope my parents would stand for me. But like you said, there are people who think that is disgraceful of me to hope for, and I accept that.

What the eff do they care for some stupid resolution?  When parents lose children, you can't decide what is proper for them.  How they should behave.  They are just trying to make it to the next day, and don't give two shits about your opinion of them.

[jj22]

I know they don't. Nobody cares about anyone's opinion on here. It's our opinion on a message board. And mine remains. I'd hope my parents wouldn't a bout face and work behind the scenes to not officially blame Kim because the POTUS they support says so.

Slam me if you want, but that's my opinion and I'm not ashamed of it.

I certainly wouldn't do that to my fallen son. Maybe you guys would and that's why you choose to attack me for daring to say it. But there are a lot of people on social media questioning how they could do this to Otto, so those of you fine with the parents falling in line with Trump over Otto are not of the popular opinion.

At least it was a bipartisan resolution and sounds like their a bout face took all the law makers by surprise. Which is understandable because typically Republicans won't do anything against the POTUS without full support of all parties. So if they knew this backchannel convo between the Trump Admin and Otto's parents was happening they likely wouldn't have signed off on it.

[GMDino]

(03-07-2019, 09:58 AM)michaelsean Wrote: What the eff do they care for some stupid resolution?  When parents lose children, you can't decide what is proper for them.  How they should behave.  They are just trying to make it to the next day, and don't give two shits about your opinion of them.

jj is stating his opinion.  I don't think I agree with it.  But at least he isn't afraid to have one and share it.

I can understand the parents being tired of having this in the public eye on one hand, but on the other hand they were very vocal when their son came home and not afraid to speak out when DJT gave Kim an out after their summit.  If they reached out to the congressman and said "don't do this" as to the resolution it does seem a bit "weird" (if that's the right word).  Why not have something more than condemns Kim and NK?

But I'm not the parent and so I won't criticize their decisions.  Doesn't mean no one can't discuss or opine on the background reasons for it.

Edit: I also read they won a settlement against NK. Perhaps there is some backdoor negotiations going on to see they get paid they don't want to risk?

[jj22]

These parents being willfully and willingly used for politics is what sets me off. Just like Ambassadors Stevens mother who cared so much about what happened to her son in Benghazi while there was a Dem President, even going as far as calling Hillary a murderer on live TV in front of Millions.

Yet we haven't heard anything on Benghazi or her for 2 years. So you mean to tell me you accuse someone of murdering your son yet after an election that changes the Presidency to someone you support, your no longer care about him being "murdered"? So what was it? Hillary's Politics? That's what determined murder accusations?

What parent would let a murderer off the hook (if they really believed what they were saying) all because of an election? If I really felt my son was murdered (and wasn't willingly playing politics with his death) I'd still be out there advocating for him and calling for closure and justice. She's nowhere to be found now. Maybe she'll pop back up if a Dem wins in 2020. Go figure.

This is the ugly side of politics (taking advantage of victims families for political gain) that we should all stand against. But it's a proven winner for Republicans, and their supporters seem to not see a problem with it.