excellent covering all angles on this. as you and others have pointed out, this was a public relations win for the president and for kim that dominates the news cycle on an important sunday afternoon. what it s not for either man. kim wants not just publicity or legitimacy, he needs sanctions relief, he needs the president of the united states to relieve some of those sanctions. what does trump want? more than a one-day story he needs a foreign policy victory. his foreign policy agenda has been in tatters, he has nothing significant to point to. with this exception, he could get an interim deal with north korea that could dismantle part not just freeze but dismantle part of the north s program in exchange for some significant relief. that was on the table at hanoi, both sides overreached, both sides miscalculated. this meeting may have put that deal back on. interesting. adam, weigh in on that, the prospect of an interim deal or
lot of water. one, my own reporting, they were working this very hard in the months leading up to this at a lower level. but that also i think neglect the fact that who you re dealing with, you re dealing with north korea. in the end, it s a dictator. the only person that s going to make the final big decisions are kim and that is going to require at some point a meeting like this and then you see what comes of it. paul: the president, dan, wants a victory. he wants a foreign policy victory like all first term presidents. wants a good economy and he wants a foreign policy victory to be able to say see, here s what i ve achieved. well, i think he should move on. and the next thing would be perhaps trade deal with china. which would be a big foreign policy victory. paul: on that point, do you think walking away from this will help with the negotiations with china, telling the chinese, look, it s not guaranteed you re going to get a deal. i do. because china is obviously a much more s
i m not really sure that holds a lot of water. one, my own reporting, they were working this very hard in the months leading up to this at a lower level. but that also i think neglect the fact that who you re dealing with, you re dealing with north korea. in the end, it s a dictator. the only person that s going to make the final big decisions are kim and that is going to require at some point a meeting like this and then you see what comes of it. paul: the president, dan, wants a victory. he wants a foreign policy victory like all first term presidents. wants a good economy and he wants a foreign policy victory to be able to say see, here s what i ve achieved. well, i think he should move on. and the next thing would be perhaps trade deal with china. which would be a big foreign policy victory. paul: on that point, do you think walking away from this will help with the negotiations with china, telling the chinese, look, it s not guaranteed you re going to get a deal. i do. because
of that optimism remains? this has been a terrible, awful, no good day for donald trump. michael cohen in washington. failure in hanoi and as we learned in the press krconferen, indictments in netanyahu, and of those, the failure in hanoi has to stand out. this was the one area of the world where he could have gotten a foreign policy victory. and as wednesday as wendy i missed opportunity. just by the way, we don t know what happened yet. we have just heard the trump version of what happened. and as my lawyer/wife told me, if you have heard one side of the divorce, you have no idea what happened. we have to hear more from kim. what do the north koreans have to say. it s a failure that will be hard
did he ruin a serious and important moment by talking about the ratings? or not? was it just a presidential moment there. well, i mean, it was a scripted moment for television. even at 3:00 a.m. in the morning. it was clearly designed for president trump he didn t have any family members there. no friends were there of the three hostages who were returned. it was all about showing and showboating for donald trump. now, mind you, he does this trying to make this story all about him. he did not go to see the body of sergeant la david johnson, which returned from niger in october after four american soldiers killed there. that report from the pentagon just came out today about the damaging incident that took place in niger. he had nothing to say about that for 12 days. trump is trying to make every, quote, unquote, foreign policy victory about him but ignore the failures. don t forget, too, there were 11