what we just heard. the president talking for more than a dozen minutes there about north korea in particular. barbara, some of the things that stood out here, he contradicted john bolton, his new national security adviser, who had said that when it comes to north korea, the administration is looking at the libya model in terms of taking away, well, in libya s case it was sort of hodgepodge nuclear parts certainly compared to what kim jong un has and what has been in development in north korea for decades. but he seemed to dismiss that idea, which is something that specifically the north koreans had cited as a reason for being upset at this point in time and really throwing the idea of these talks into question about whether they re even going to happen, but he was also stressing that when it came to libya, when it came to gadhafi, we didn t say to them, meaning the u.s., that they ll get protection, that they ll have military strength. he s talking about adequate
infrastructure. we just had airports approved, a lot of things are happening, but we spent $7 trillion in the middle east and look where we are right now. it s pretty sad. but the model, if you look at that model with gadhafi, that was a total descimation. if we make a deal, i think kim jong un will be very, very happy. but this is just the opposite. when john bolton made that statement, he was talking about if we re going to be having a problem because we cannot let that country have new mexiukes,t can t do it. again, you look at syria, that was a total decimation.
protection for kim jong un. what s he talking about here? is he just trying to say, hey, we re not talking about regime change in north korea? don t be so upset right now? brianna, i think there is no other way to interpret all of this than donald trump speaking specifically to kim jong un on all of this. this is a message to kim directly. let s take it bit by bit. kim is worried about the libya model because the u.s. eased economic sanctions against libya in return for gadhafi giving up its weapons and then backed rebels that essentially backed gadhafi being murdered. kim wants to stay in power, have the u.s. do nothing to risk that. so he gets worried about the talks. could this weaken his own control on his country? president trump today right now reassuring kim, no, you will have protection. that s the president of the united states telling the north
gadhafi. this would be with kim jong un, something where he d be there, he d be running his country. his country would be very rich. his people are tremendously industrious. if you look at south korea, this would be a south korean model in terms of their industry, in terms of what they do. they re hard working, incredible people. but the libyan model was a much different model. we decimated that country. we never said to gadhafi, oh, we re going to give you protection, we re going to give you military strength, we re going to give you all of these things. we went in and decimated him, and we did the same thing with iraq. now, whether or not we should have, i could tell you i was against it from the beginning because look what we have right now. we have spent $7 trillion can you believe that $7 trillion in the middle east right out the window. you might as well throw the money right out the window. and we ve done a lot of
part of the world. they see syria as access to the mediterranean, sitting on the eastern shore of the mediterranean and they are interested in offshore gas off cyprus and greece. they want the navy to go in and out of there, et cetera. the basic position is like the chinese, they are completely opposed to intervention in the internal affairs of sovereign states. that s why they are grouped together as the shanghai cooperation organization. putin personally after he was his diplomats were tricked and deceived about libya where nato was allegedly just going to protect the population of benghazi and it somehow inded up with gadhafi being murdered. they are digging their heels in with assad. the other plus point for them, is that whereas the united