spoke out against the things that donald trump has done. none of them spoke up and of course, joe, i ve been speaking with republicans for the past several weeks, who have been very uncomfortable with the president s rhetoric on north korea. thinking that he was setting himself up for an embarrassment. practically promising that a deal was in the bag. and the concern there was that he was really strengthening kim jong un s negotiating hand. because politically, the president was promising this deal to his base. he had his supporters chanting nobel prize, nobel prize as if it was already in the bag. and then you saw comments from the president walking that back at one point saying well, it depends on the deal and i m prepared to walk or to not come to the table at all. totally disregarding all of the historical data points you mentioned in the past about this very predictable behavior.
years. china has been tightening the screws on north korea. the question here is did the chinese summon basically their proxy to beijing ahead of expected meetings with south korea and with president trump to kind of give instructions, you could argue, or is this kim jong-un being very clever and leveraging the upcoming meetings with the south korean president with president trump to get an audience with the leader of china, who has kind of shunned him in the past. we simply don t have the answer to that right now. what we do know is that north korea is far less isolated internationally than it was just a few months ago, which means they probably have a stronger negotiating hand when they go into the meetings with president trump, with the president of south korea. brianna. ivan, thank you so much. david sanger is joining us now,
remarkable position heading towards the summit that south korean president is going to have and also that president trump is going to hav have. martha: you have to be cautiously optimistic would be the way to look at it. there was word of a nuclear plant expansion and north korea, they say of course it s power based. obviously, the proof is going to be in these structures and whether or not they re continuing to expand on them as we speak. they are strengthening their negotiating hand. experiments are being tested, other nuclear reactors are being brought online, we are beginning exercises with south koreans that we delayed for the olympics, we are continuing all of our economic sanctions, we got navy ships going into north korean ports. all of that is about strengthening our hands heading in towards the negotiations. spew at the next couple of months will be summing to watch. general, good to see you, thank you so much.
his negotiating hand big time. with that open negotiation session, we saw this week, they thought it was a good display for him. he got to argue why he wanted the wall and changes to chain migrations and the republican thought they elevated their negotiating hand. that s totally gone now. the other piece is that this makes a deal a million times harder because democrats are not going to want to negotiate with a country who calls these places shitholes. even if they thought it was a policy perspective even though he is repugnant, we have to negotiate. we are still waiting to hear from speaker ryan on this issue. he is doing a live event at home in wisconsin. we are talking about immigration, but that s just one part. one week away from the government running out of money that could force a shut down.
very precise and truthful with our words, because words matter in public statements, and i worry that the credibility of the united states is being diminished when the president speaks so off the cuff, because everybody is listening, everybody in north korea is watching these tweets very specifically. and insulting a foreign leader that has nuclear weapons is strategically unwise, to say the least. and you know, at worst, it is dangerous, irresponsible, and all over the rhetoric map, all over the map rhetoric from the trump administration really hurts our negotiating hand in the future. this is not new, stewart. the question is, as he s trying to say to the leader of north korea, look, your rockets, i m calling you rocket man because i m trying to belittle you, just as he s used the word sleepy eyes before, right, of the north korean leader. there s also the idea that you re not doing well economically, so you ve got your own problems. but let s dig into that reality. is that the rea