Good, i like that, i like where youre going. You can see more of these and other interviews we conducted on our website at recode. Net and stay tuned for exciting news on the revolution special. Im cara swisher. Thanks for watching. See you next time. Welcome to kasie d. C. Im kasie hunt. We are live every sunday from washington from 7 00 to 9 00 p. M. Eastern. Tonight is actually tomorrow. President trump is waking up in singapore ahead of an historic summit with north Korean Leader kim jongun. After a dramatic several days of will they or wont they, it looks like they will ieed meet. Will trumps Intuition Help him close the deal . Plus, fallout from the president S Performance at the g7 summit. Basically up ending years of global diplomacy with, you
guessed it, a single tweet. And the debate rages on over president ial pardon power. A special Counsel Robert Mueller files new charges against Paul Manafort. Ill ask connecticut senator Richard Blumenthal about that when he joins me live. But first,sa picture is worth a thousand words. And as with everything in the trump administration, that may be an understatement. Of course, there is this photo from the g7 tweeted out by a spokesman for Angela Merkel showing the german chancellor with her hands planted staring down at her american counterpart. There is also this one showing a white imprint on President Trumps right hand following yet another hard handshake with french president emmanuel macron. And then there is this one of imf Managing Director and chairman Christine Lagarde with a withering look as the president shows up late for a breakfast focused on gender equality. Of course, they will all be
overshadowed in about 24 hours by the image of a sitting american president meeting with the leader of north korea for the first time ever. The question now is what, if anything, will that Meeting Amount to beyond just that photo op . With that i want to women come in my panel. Joining me on set from political acts uotsuri, Jonathan Swan. Msnbc National Security analyst evelyn farkas. Political reporter ken vogel. And joining us all the way from singapore and Pulitzer Prize winning White House Bureau chief for the Washington Post philip rucker. Phil, i want to start with you since you are on scene, the site of all of the action. Im been enjougiying all the Instagram Photos from jw marriott. You write, and i thought this was a really on point frame. One, is a septegenarian
president , the other a millennial president. They mix taunts and tributes to keep the other off balance. Thin skinned alphas, both men are wed to a go it alone leadership style, have a penchant for bomb past and project dominance when they finally meet. So, at what what is your sense of how things are unfolding there on the ground in singapore so far . And what do you think these two personalities how is the president going to end up handling this . Yeah, kasie, they both arrived here in singapore last night. It is now morning, monday morning. President trump is scheduled to be meeting with the Prime Minister of singapore later today and then of course on tuesday with kim jongun. And they have been sizing each other up for months, really for years. Kim jongun and the north korean delegation have been studying donald trump, the history about him, the art of the deal, sort of understanding his personality. Trump is doing the same about kim. I think trump sees this very much as a clash of personalities
as an opportunity to size up the north korean dictator, something no american president has been able to do face to face. And as he said the other day, hell know within a minute or two whether there is something here, whether kim can come to the table and have a deal. Now, if you start looking at the substance of what that deal could be, it gets very messy because thats not worked out. Unclear what sort of deliverables they could walk away from this meeting with, but trump is very eager at least have the meeting and try to make friends with the dictator. Phil, is there a view that there may be any risk for the president in simply having this photo op . What is the thinking, what has been told about whether he should smile, how he should present himself in what we know is going to be an instantly iconic picture . Well, its an iconic picture that the north koreans very much want. For them this is, this is an achievement in and of itself, getting an audience with the president , putting kim jongun
on equal footing with the american commander in chief and it will be used in propaganda back home by the north koreans to show Kim Asarneng Respe around the world. So the danger for trump is hes giving kim something by simply shaking his hand and meeting him. Well have to see what the Body Language looks like. I think it will be really striking, for example, if trump is kinder to kim jongun than he was to Justin Trudeau in canada and some of the other european allies he was with the at the g7 in quebec the other day. The Body Language from the photos that you showed at the beginning of the show was so striking and well have to see if trump is more relaxed and frankly more enjoying himself when hes face to face with the north Korean Leader. So, as you reference a minute ago, the president did say it wont take long for him to tell if kim jongun is serious about ma making a deal. I think within the first
minute ill know. How . My touch, my feel. Thats what i do. If i think it wont happen, im not going to waste my time. I dont want to waste his time. Jonathan swan, your take on that. Philip rucker mentioned this is a clash of personalities. You have reporting about that. The president has been in his briefings fixated on kim jonguns personality, wanting to know everything he can about him. Hes been asking mike pompeo who has met with him, the only one of his top aides. The allied agencies have compiled a detailed study, profile of kim jongun largely taken from interviews with some of his former class made when he attended an Elite Swiss School in his adolescence. Interesting. The profile, we got this from someone who studied it carefully, the classified binder. It bears a striking resemblance to the kim jongun you see today. He described him as the young kim jongun from these
interviews, almost sick. Would be prone to fits of anger and outbursts of violence. Apparently there were Young Children he hit during this. He was an inattentive student. Didnt attend class very much, and demanded slaveish loyalty from his classmates. Slaveish loyalty. Evelyn farkas, what does this tell you if youre preparing the president to meet with this man . First of all, its not surprising because this is the guy who had his brother killed and his uncle killed. So, anyone who would be any kind of threat to him and his power has been eliminated. We understand hes a pretty ruthless guy. Although hes said its not Military Force, his father had military first. Hes saying economy first after we get our he wants a mcdonalds. Yes, i know. And that he has in common with the president , with our president , of course, because our president loves hamburgers and i guess he likes mcdonalds. I cant remember if that was he does. Fillet of fish. Sometimes without the bread. I think if hes smart, le study our president , kim jongun, and just butter it up, he has one minute to butter him up. Its impressive that theyre doing this level of preparation. Certainly one of the concerns is there was no preparation and it would be nice if that preparation was also on the policy side and not just on the Personality Side. You know, famously george w. Bush, when he was meeting with Vladimir Putin said that he could assess and he was someone who was deste libal sort of stereotypes of him, was actually someone who did prepare on the policy side as well as the Personality Side and said that he looked putin in the eye, could see into his soul and found him trustworthy and straightforward. Came to regret that was incorrect. Theres only so far the personality goes. Policy is the key here. That was because he looked at the dossier that he had on putin, looked at the dossier on bush, knew he was religious. He referenced he had a cross and he talked about this cross and the meaning for him. So, in part so he played bush. Philip rucker, i want to go to you on this. We talked so much about how the president prepares or doesnt prepare for all kinds of meetings, but none with stakes as high as this one. If, in fact, american authorities, they do have this binder Jonathan Swan is now reporting on, it still see as though this president is absorbing that information only by having verbal conversations with people who have read it. Is that your sense . I think thats right, kasie. This is a president , donald trump, who does not read his daily Intelligence Report thats written out for him. Instead he participate in more oral briefings. The cia director will come into the oval office and show him graphics, videos, pictures, maps, charts, anything that can help him visually understand the intelligence because we know he doesnt like to sit down and pour over the written word. I assume thats the case now as
hes preparing to meet with kim jongun. Trump has said he doesnt require much preparation for this meeting. Thats not quite right. According to mike pompeo, the secretary of state who said hes been having very extensive briefings with President Trump for several weeks now, months really, trying to prepare him for this, trying to get him to understand sort of the history of u. S. korea relations, the history of North And South Korea relations, sort of the details that are at stake. Even if hes not an expert in the technicality of nuclear arms, he at least can understand the sort of broader geopolitical dynamic at play with north korea as he prepares for the meeting. Lets turn now to all of the drama that preceded this evening, the g7 summit. Just a few hours after the president called his relationship with g7 allies a 10, he pulled the u. S. Out of the G7 Joint Communique as a result of what he called Justin Trudeaus, quote, false statements. He went on to tweet, quote, pm,Justin Trudeau of canada acted so meek and mild during our g7 meetings only to give a News Conference after i left saying that about u. S. Tariffs. He stabbed us in the back. He really, actually, you know what, he did a great disservice to the whole g7. He betrayed trudeau did . Yes, he did. We were very close to making a deal with canada on nta, bilaterally, perhaps, and then we leave, and trudeau pulls this sophomoric political stunt for domestic consumption. You justont behave that way, okay. Its a betrayal. Essentially Double Crossing. Not just Double CrossingPresident Trump, but the other members of the g7 who were working together and pulling together this communique. There is a special place in hell for any foreign leader that engages in bad faith diplomacy
with president donald j. Trump and then tries to stab him in the back on the way out the door. Thats what bad faith Justin Trudeau did with that bad stunt press conference. And that comes right from Air Force One. After those comments, senator jeff flake tweeting, quote, fellow republicans, this is not who we are. This cannot be our p. Once again, flake pretty lonely so far in his condemnation of the president. Kin vogel, how much selfawareness is there . The tweets from trump minutes after leaving the setting, calling out another world leader for being like meek in person and then saying something negative after the fact and then also false statements, trump has actually bragged about bluffing Justin Trudeau on the Trade Deficit using false statements. So, its pretty rich to see him accusing this foreign leader of
doing the same thing that weve seen him do himself. Jonathan swan, i mean, this we knew that the president had already caused all sorts of potentially irreversible problems with the canadian government after making this announcement on tariffs. But the way that the this g7 summit concluded, i mean, is it possible weve seen some tweets from john mccain, for example, that suggest that some day americas allies will see the americans who are actually on their side. Is that possible at this point . Well, weve been talking to european officials who are having the same problems with the president , particularly, you know, when you look at germany, even france after they got to a better place. Thats been reversed. The u. K. What theyre trying to do is have this longrange view that this is a president for this moment, but move beyond that. But they still have the military ties and they lean on that. They look for positives where they can. The reality is transatlantic
relations havent been this bad. Were not talking about transatlantic. Here on the continent. Canada, too, but the european relationship has been profoundly damaged in the last few months over trade as well. Shinzo abe was standing there as well. When it comes to economic issues, this is global. And this is serious. And i think what was interesting to me, i think we need more reporting on this, but it appears reading between the lines in the way the post covered it today, that the europeans actually staged an intervention. So that photo may have been that intervention where they said, okay, mr. President trump, these are the facts. 70 of the Foreign Direct Investment in the United States of america comes from european countries. And by the way, a lot of that goes to Southern States that voted for trump. We should point out, that interview, particularly knnovar, thats an extreme ive seen from
an official to say there is a special place in hell for him and give him labels like weak and dishonest. That is taking rhetoric to a level i honestly havent seen and ive been covering trump for almost three years now. And the level of silence from most republicans in washington feels deafening. I guess they have so many things to be outraged about that they sort of pick their moments, but their moments are pretty rare, arent they . Phil rucker, can i get you to weigh in on this, how this all unfolded . Seems like a classic case of the president Making One Decision in the room and then either watching Justin Trudeaus press conference, being briefed on it and making very abrupt decision and kind of reversing himself entirely. What are the consequence here . Are these relationships reparable . Well, the consequence are quite severe for the relationship as the panel has been discussing. But the pattern is familiar for trump. I mean, hes someone who when
hes in the room with you, whether its, you know, a fellow foreign leader or even just a journalist for an interview, he wants you to like him. He wants to try to create a level of warmth there. He wants to he doesnt usually confront people face to face. And then the meeting is over and he goes off on twitter as he did aboard Air Force One from canada en route to singapore. I mean, this is just a familiar pattern for donald trump and he bullies sometimes, but he likes to bully with a distance. He doesnt like to do it face to face with the people hes trying to bully. You mentioned at the top of the show, too, looking at that picture of Angela Merkel and the other lead erdos surrounding the president , that sort of dark, almost angry look on his face and how that could potentially differ from it certainly already differs from him receiving the letter from the north koreans, you remember in the oval office where he was smiling and holding that giant envelope. We talked about this a lot, i know, whether he has an affinity
for dictators. What is it that explains why hes so hostile in a room of people that have been allies of the United States for decades and seems so warm and open to these other people who have been our enemies . Well, hes so open to kim jongun in part because its his bid for history. You know, trump, it stuck with him for the first time he sat down with president barack obama after the election and before trump was inaugurated, obama told him, look, north korea is the biggest challenge youre going to face in sort of a National Security sense around the world. And this was a problem that obama couldnt fix. The Nuclear Development in north korea. And so that stuck with trump and its been a motivating factor ever since. He wants to outdo obama. He wants to solve the problem his predecessors couldnt. Because of that hes in ultimate salesman mode now. He wants the north koreans to like him. He wants the north koreans to come to the Negotiating Table with him. He wants them to agree to a deal
so hes willing to flatter kim jongun. Hes willing to, you kn