side about. exactly what is to be done by whom and when. this is barely laid out. so as you said, if this were a game, this would be maybe the top of the first, joe. there s a lot of baseball to come here. i think the one to me concerning thing was the apples and oranges part of the president s position. north korea talked aspirationally about denuclearization, but the united states offered up something tangible which was the suspension of all military exercises and as best i can tell, those exercises, which are part of our conventional military deterrent, they were never meant to be a response to north korea s nuclear or missile force, i don t see anyone talking about much less doing something about the conventional military threat that north korea poses to south korea, the tens of thousands in artillery and the like. what this seems to be is ultimately very much a trumpen summit, emphasis on the istry and personal relationship, and yet again, a
those military exercises serve multiple purposes, not only do they deter aggression by the north, but they serve other interests in the asiapathpacifi region. joe? richard, we know what the north koreans got out of this. they had a murderous despot share the state with the representative of the united states of america. they re getting the suspension of military exercises, which i m sure our allies like the japanese may not be particularly pleased with. what did the united states get out of this? well, i think what this did is it stopped a drift towards war that we the conversation we were all having on this set three, four, five, six months ago, joe, that has been put in abeyance. that s one thing that s positive. to make it a sunny day, you would say it at least holds out the potential for addressing
some of the specific threats posed by north korea above all the nuclear missile threat, and there s nothing in here that interrupted the freeze on testing of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. so i would say that s essentially what we got. and the fact also that the united states, for some at least, that we seem to be embracing diplomacy. this is an administration that spent the last several days, not just kicking its allies, but seeming to reject the normal give and take of diplomacy. i don t want to exaggerate what i m saying here, most of the upsides or potential for us, most of the upsides i think are much more immediate and tangible for north korea and also china. i would say this outcome to me looks like nothing so much as the proposal china floated when they talked about a freeze for eeze, suspension of north korean testing in exchange for suspension of u.s./south korean military exercises. i expect xi jinping is going not bad, chance of war down, weakens
jong-un but big symbolic value. best indications is this dismantling could happen as early as tomorrow, thursday korea time. president moon is heading back to seoul after the meeting with trump and other members of the administration. we spoke to an official close to moon. fine-tuning and adjusting the scope of expectations is required for the scheduled summit. talks between north and south korea had also been broken off. pyongyang gave the excuse of u.s./south korean military exercises, seoul saying as the drills are winding down those talks could start up, too. careful, tense, nervous but maybe hopeful times here on the peninsula. back to you. sandra: a lot to dig into there. bill: two big stories, plenty of reaction, former white house press secretary sean spicer. he has a little bit of experience taking these questions. how are you doing and good morning to you? i want to get a sense how you see things starting to unfold.
the rest of the world, but at least have some of the acuteriments to join the rest of the world. what we re looking at is the north koreans are trying to find a path where they can get rid of the sanctions and also better relations with the u.s. because it s going to help them. if at some point they find that path is not exactly what they had hoped for, they will revert back to weapons tests, to other things that are more belligerent. some of the things that north koreans want, we re told. sovereignty, security, dramatic reduction of u.s. troops on the peninsula, scaling down u.s./south korean military exercises. any chance the united states would really pull back its troops from south korea given everything that happened in the region. it s about security for japan and rise of china and a lot going on there. absolutely. i think the answer to that is, no, at least not in the short term.