to me that s like the russians saying, trust us, we won t build nukes. what is the verification regime? how do we know that s not going to happen? we obviously can t send inspectors over like we did with the russians. i think the verification is the field, our predators, our counter terrorism efforts that have to remain in place. that s what s currently there. the other piece is we have to continue to build the afghan army so that eventually they can take care of this themselves and say, trust me, we can take care of it. so talk of withdrawal means you re pulling those verification pieces away. we re not talking hundreds of thousands of troops. we re talking 15,000. we still have 25,000 troops in japan from world war ii. the united states has to lead. we have to keep a lid on these groups. if we just pull out, i m worried that 20 terrorist groups which exist in afghanistan and pakistan today will hit the
timeline and verification regime, we should not hold a summit. we thought there was some sort of agreement before trump met with kim jong-un the first time in singapore, but there wasn t any agreement. all we got was some aspirational statement, not any kind of agreement. so i don t think we should just meet for the sake of meeting unless we know this time we can get something out of north korea like declaration of all their nuclear missile program. and courtney, it bears repeating in the place where you cover for a living. rule one at the pentagon is never, ever believe anything the north koreans say, right? and russians right now. and another thing that s interesting from our reporting, we had been reporting, of course, that north korea wanted to continue to conceal their program. that s a big point of contention with the united states and the international community. sue was talking about the summit that was now three months ago. one thing the u.s. hoped to get out of that was a
wants a peace treaty with the united states, and of course his real goal is to get an international acceptance of north korea as a nuclear power. they already see themselves as a defective nuclear weapon state. north korea wants to be like pakistan, and i think that s kim s goal and he thinks he can get it if he can sit down with president trump. i think kim jong-un has found a way to deal with president trump. he knows how to flatter him, he s not criticizing trump when he has criticized every other leader, south korean leader, former president obama. i think he knows how to manipulate trump, and i think that s his goal. so, sue, this is why you hold that for the american team, a second summit could be disastrous? well, on this we re really prepared unless we can get something out of north korea like declaration of all their nuclear and missile programs or agreement on some sort of timeline and verification
real goal is to get an international acceptance of north korea as a nuclear power. they already see themselves as a defective nuclear state. north korea wants to be like pakistan, and i think that s kim s goal and he thinks he can get it if he can sit down with president trump. i think kim jong-un has found a way to deal with president trump. he knows how to flatter him, he s not criticizing trump when he has criticized every other south korean leader, former president obama. i think he knows how to manipulate trump, and i think that s his goal. so, sue, this is why you hold for the american team a second summit could be disastrous? well, on this we re really prepared unless we can get something out of north korea like declaration of all their nuclear and missile programs or agreement on some sort of timeline and verification regime, we should not hold a summit.
testing. no missiles, no anything. mike pompeo is over there right now. steve: he is, indeed. president trump last night touting his historic summit with north korea s kim jong un. remember that from a couple of weeks ago? this as secretary of state mike pompeo kicks off two days of meetings in pyongyang. how close are we to fully denuking that country with some sort of an agreement? here to weigh in military analyst and international relations expert dr. rebecca grant. rebecca, good morning to you. good morning. steve: mike pompeo has got to come back with something. what? yes, he does. he already knows what it is. this is the third time that he has been to the region. so they talked about this timetable. what they are saying now is that they want a pathway to the full and final verification. so we re going to hear what exactly the inventory is that north korea has and when they are ready to start taking steps. we re going to hear more about when we can start a verification regime