Kim/Trump Summit Disaster

[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.