to one-up the other? don t you have to anticipate that? there is a colleague of mine, at the new yorker, robin wright wrote about this, this is sort of backwards. normally the president comes in at the end. it was agreed by lower level people. nixon s breakthrough visiting china, that was three years of meetings. so there s a danger here that it s going to that they will meet and kim jong-un will have this great, you know, moment in the global spotlight, you know, and nothing really comes out of it for trump. so they need to manage expectations and i think start meetings now and try to plan out, to start this at the beginning of a dialogue. they re not going to instantly solve everything. is there a great reward for north korea, that this helps legitimize it? for the u.s. there are risks and there are rewards. yes. again, i want to be fair to trump, i think this is the right thing to do, to meet with him, but i think he has to be patient, listen to his aides, listen to past adm
tactic. the pressure they agreed to talks and then they basically used negotiations to buy time. he needs to sort of not be tricked into expecting some instant breakthrough in this kind of meeting. this has to be a strategy, not just a tactic. trump s tweet says china has been helpful here. japan apparently not very excited about this idea. what does this do to the entire region potentially? it raises a lot of expectations. it s a smart play by the north koreans. they re acting very effectively diplomatically. the chinese are upset. again, a white house mistake. the japanese weren t told he was going to agree to this meeting beforehand. that s just a simple thing, wait a few hours. so yn the japanese are going to be nervous. the chinese i think will help. but he s got to be very careful again about whether the chinese take real risks or just put trump out there on his own to solve this. david rhode, thank you so much. straight ahead, u.s. attorney general jeff sessions pushing
leader kim jong-un punches right back. state media calls trump an old lunatic and a dotard. yet less than six months later, trump accepts trump s call for face-to-face talks. they will be met with fire and fury. like the world has never seen. reporter: there have been times where trump doubted his words were clear enough. even doubted his secretary of state s more formal diplomacy. tweeting, i told rex tillerson our wonderful secretary of state that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with little rocketman. kim kept his robecket tests coming. intent on creating a missile capable of reaching the united states armed with a nuclear bomb. so what has changed? even at new year, both were boasting about nuclear buttons. so has trump s bomblast finally
artillery range of north korea s cannons. so the south koreans are delighted that we ve gotten to the stage of a possible historic meeting between the north korean and u.s. leaders, fret ridricka all right, ivan watson, thank you. south korea having been instrumental in extending that invitation apparently north korea gave. in just a few hours, we will hear from president trump at a rally in pennsylvania. will he address this possible meeting with north korea? analyst david rhodes joining me right now. good to see you, david. how unusual or strange is this that there has been no re, ax , reaction, nothing public coming from north korea about what would be a huge meeting, a huge moment for north korea? i think it s a good sign. what we don t want to have the backtracking from either side and you talked about it, sort of a muddled message from the white house yesterday. i want to credit donald trump
lie after another. one falsehood. they ve been exposed to one falsehood over another. this affair that everyone believes took place. no one believes the white house or his attorney that is the i didn t interrupt you, ben. excuse me. hold on, ben, let robert say the whole thing. you can you respond. the president has denied this. no one believes it. but the bigger point is this white house has been caught in one lie after another discussing the matter. if this is what a adult film star and her lawyer can do to this administration, think about what the russians can do to this administration. everyone knows what the score is. let s be very clear. this should make us extremely sad to see a president well, i wonder, bernn, becau there have been very different versions, even from the attorney. first there was no payment. and then there was a payment. there was llc. and then it was, you know now this home equity line of credit.