said that they had no knowledge of anything that was going on, and the white house also had no comment for several hours. and that was before when we had gotten the first initial word about that the summit was at risk, not just tonight s news. you know, it s just the situation is that the white house and the president has made the expectations for this summit huge. i mean they ve been talking about it for weeks. if you ll recall, president trump immediately agreed to this when it was brought up without having a full discussion about it. he s campaigned on it at his campaign rally recently. you know, he staged this entire when the prisoners came home the other day, you know, this made for tv moment. so he s really, really counting on this and had expected maybe not everything to go okay when they have the summit in june. he had talked about we could still walk away. but i think he did expect it to happen. joe, a former president once said to me, it sure looks different from the ch
that was saber rattling. it involves nukes that could potentially reach our country. that was scary, and we saw that in the polling when things started to thaw. a cnn poll on the upcoming summit, do you agree of trump s decision to meet with kim jong-un? 77% approval rating. we can t agree that many people on apple pie in this country, so that does show you there s a whole lot of people who want to see this happen. yeah. i mean definitely. you re so right. remember, last year when there was all that talk, when president trump was making all those comments, there were a lot of people that were worried. there were people on capitol hill that were worried that another war could start. so, yes, i mean there are definitely people all over in washington and across the country that really do want this to happen. i just think that we have to remember one thing, which is we re talking about, you know, this is midway another four weeks ago. one thing that i ve heard over and over, it s usually
they re apparently angered by the joint u.s./south korea military drills. the pentagon released a statement today saying the exercises are defensive in nature and part of a routine annual training program. earlier today the state department says preparations for the summit are still under way and the north has not notified the u.s. of any official change. let s talk about it with two of our experts tonight. anita kumar and joe sa rinseiony, president of ploughshares fund and author of nuclear nightmares, securing the world before it s too late. on that note, joe, a lot of folks we ve had this conversation, the three of us have on this broadcast. we ve been walking around, talking in advance about denuclearizing north korea, and on shows like this, guests like you have said, you know, good luck with that. it s been at great expense. the people are eating dirt so they have the money to run a nuclear program. the question is, is this a real threat to the summit, or is this just the ri
the studio, there was a late breaking story that apparently u.s. and north korean and south korean officials are getting on the phone to talk about this and see if there s some way to clarify what everybody s position is. that s number one. number two, recognize that negotiations have phases, and we re now in sort of the mid phase. we re now four weeks out from the summit. expect this push and pull. expect posturing. this is kind of what you would think each side would do, stress their maximal positions to try to get concessions from the other side. and, three, this is what you were saying, brian. bring in some of the older hands, some of the people that have been excluded. for example, people you ve had on the show like chris hill or victor schaub, bring them in to talk and give you some advice. that s what mike pompeo above all needs right now. anita, americans got nervous during the fire and fury days.
of this, by just how much was the administration surprised with today s announcement? right. well, they were taken by surprise. you saw the state department said that they had no knowledge of anything that was going on, and the white house also had no comment for several hours. and that was before when we had gotten the first initial word that the summit was at risk, not just tonight s news. you know, it s just the situation is that the white house and the president has made the expectations for this summit huge. i mean they ve been talking about it for weeks. if you ll recall, president trump immediately agreed to this when it was brought up without having a full discussion about it. he s campaigned on it at his campaign rally recently. you know, he staged this entire when the prisoners came home the other day, you know, this made for tv moment. so he s really, really counting on this and had expected maybe not everything to go okay when they have the summit in june.