crossing of the line with the north of nuclear provocation and testing. and unsatisfying response by the west led by the united states, by china and our allies that involved just economic sanctions, which is not to say that they didn t have teeth and didn t hurt and weren t effective, but it was a cycle. it was really a vicious cycle that was not getting the job done. and for us to be in this position where there is a discussion of a different way forward, we have to be cautious about it. and we have to be cautious because especially in our media age which captures the moment and not the process, we can t forget that there s a long process ahead. and that s what s important. what is it that we re actually getting out of this because as tony says and others have pointed out, what kim wanted coming into this was relatively modest. he wanted to be seen as the man. you know, as an international leader, not a pariah, not a dictator who starves his own people, we can t forget that,
is this the result of president trump s decision to engage directly with kim jong-un. it certainly didn t hurt. that is for sure. if you look back at the history of when hostages are released, they tend even in the worst of times, vis-a-vis american and north korean relations, the north koreans tend to demand high level person to person contact. whether it is bill clinton, who went and got some hostages several years ago, or bill richardson, or former u.n. ambassador, or others. the fact that you now have a president a sitting president of the united states in active negotiations with kim jong-un for a summit and by the way sent his sitting secretary of state to go and work on that and deal with the hostages, this is absolutely had the north koreans
fox news, so an awareness that at least some people here within the administration were caught off guard. now, rudy giuliani indicated that the president was aware he was going to come out and make those statements and president trump sort solof underscored th fact in the series of tweets he unleashed earlier today. a couple of other points that i ll hit here from the briefing, sarah was asked if michael cohen is still the president s attorney. she didn t say yes or no, she just said she s not aware of any dealings that they have right now. when was the last time they spoke? sarah couldn t say. now, i asked sarah how many payments there were to cohen in the days after the election. she also referred that question to outside counsel, steve, but these questions aren t going away, it s clearly an increasingly political, larger political problem, for the white house. steve? yeah, and danny cevalos, let me bring you in, sarah huckabee sanders saying rudy giuliani didn t hurt the president
i know that makes a lot of people in the white house nervous. so today is mike pompeo s first full day on the job. secretary of state is going well so far. the white house just released this photo. we have heard of this secret trip over easter w where mike pompeo went is and met with kim jong-un. here is the photographic evidence of this. they are not broadly smiling in the way we saw today. but they are shaking hands. and clearly this greased the wheels for something. presumably. there is broad symmetry in the photos. this is the great secret easter meeting between these two. it obviously didn t hurt, because the effort is going forward. but this is obviously when pompeo was cia director, now secretary of state pompeo. and, as you say, a good first full day on the job. so mike pompeo becoming secretary on of state. in fairness, there was a lot of hype around whether or not he
and respond to your question and then quickly change it to what she wants to say. it is an unfair thing to do. call him a leaker. this investigation that is going on right now, this inspector general investigation, which it should. they will get to the bottom and find out did jim comey violate policy. she says he s a leaker while the investigation is going on. almost in the same breath, shortly thereafter when you ask about the v.a. secretary she said this is being looked into. it is called having it both ways. that s right. comey put himself in this position, one with his controversial moves with hillary clinton. i don t know how you can argue that didn t hurt hillary clinton. i thought that was one of the weaker points kellyanne tried to get past us last night. he said he s not a leaker. he s a leaker. he leaked the information. was it confidential can, was it unauthorized, those are separate issues. when you take something that is arguably not yours to take normally, that s no