be to turn and hit trump voters on their pocketbooks? yes, it is going to have an impact. some of these tariffs that may come back from china, mexico and canada also, it s going to affect the trump voters. the republican base, particularly in the midwest, the rural states, and i think that is weighing on the president. you know, he speaks privately, tremendous fondness of his base and this agricultural industry here, these are great patriots, he has said. he feels like they ll stick with him, this is for the overall national good. we ll have to see how that plays out but certainly, this is, the idea of tariffs, being tough on trade, for a president who is is not particularly ideologically consistent, this is something he s believed in predating his time to art of the deal. i want to speak to you what you wrote about kim kardashian west visiting the white house
self-proclaimed master deal maker has warned against appearing too eager. you don t have to listen to him. i mean, read it, right there, black and white, page 53 of trump s art of the deal. right under the header, use your leverage, quote, the worst thing you can possibly do in a deal is seem desperate to make it. that makes the other guy smell blood and then you re dead. does kim jong-un smell blood? we know north korean officials have been reading art of the deal. they ve been trying to understand trump s negotiating tactics. it seems kim could be taking a page straight out of the president s book. know your market. kim s market in this case is the market of one person, donald trump. a man who loves praise, thrives upon it, cannot survive without it. and will seemingly look the other way on anything once he gets the adulation he desires. kim did not take trump s bait on canceling the summit and the whole my but tton is bigger typ of rhetoric. instead, we highly appreciated
senator ben cardin, a member of the senate foreign relations committee. good to see you, senator. you called the decision to call off the singapore summit puzzling. why? well, first, it s good to be with you. the crisis on the north korean peninsula is caused by kim jong-un and north korea by violating internatial norms. i think everyone understands that the only way to resolve this is through diplomacy. there is no military option without extreme risks, so it s puzzling that the president has now thrown diplomacy off track. there s always a risk of a miscalculation. a miscalculation can have extremely dangerous consequences. i think most people believe the president is doing this for negotiating reasons. i m just puzzled by it. yeah, art of the deal, he s always said you ve got to know when to walk away from a deal. but let s talk about the north korean to the cancelling of the summit. unusual to say the least.
that mcmaster and tillerson were out was to smooth out this issue. finally, the president is going to have a secretary of state and a national security adviser at least that he gets along with. they may but once again it is an old-fashioned it looks like the nsa is in one place, secretary of state is in another. we have seen this in previous white houses. think about all the different personnel changes, but the person at the center is donald trump. i talked to so many whyte whout officials yesterday. i was asking all sorts of questions, did he do this because he thought kim was going to cancel? what else is going on? why would you dictate it in this way? what the north korean nuclear threat that was in the middle of the letter that we pray we don t have to use your nuclear weapons. at the end of the day president trump made this decision and he is going to continue to be the person that decides using his gut how he does foreign poll see. this is the way he does it. it s kind of an
up the weapons and to have bolton and then vice president pence repeatedly invoking this libya model so obviously provocative so i think it was pretty predictable and then the other thing i think trump after he d agreed to do this probably started to realize and so much coverage about it that they hadn t laid the groundwork for a meeting and hadn t done the legwork typically done before the president of the united states sits down with someone like north korea. and, bill, part of president trump s book art of the deal, quote, the worst thing to do in a deal is to seem desperate to make it. that makes the other guy smell blood and then you re dead. end quote. do you think the president is taking the right step by walking away? yes. i think no summit is better than giving away important equities that we care about in terms of