Prosperity. Second, the United States and north korea will join their efforts to build a lasting and stable peace regime on the korean pinsula. Third, north korea commits to workd the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. And finally, the United States and the north commit to recoveringrisoners of war, missing in action remains, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified. President trump held a News Conference just a short time ago and revealed what appears to be a major concession on the american side ending the u. S. south korea joint Military Exercises which he called war games. Can you be specific about what assurances you are willing to give to kim jongun . Does that include reducing military capabilities and just to follow up on your answer no, were not reducing anything. At some point i have to be host and i used to say this
during my campaign, as you know probably better than most, i want to get our soldiers out and bring our soldiers back home. We have right now 32,000 soldiers in south korea. And i would like to be able to bring them back home. But thats not part of the equation right now at some point i hope it will be, but not right now. We will be stopping the war games, which will save us a tremendous amount of money, unless and until we see the future negotiation is not going along like it should. But well be saving a tremendous amount of money. Plus i think its very provocative. Welcome to morning joe. It is tuesday, june 12th. We have all the historic, diplomatic, political and security angles of this moment covered for you this morning. Former ambassadors Wendy Sherman, Christopher Hill and nick burns, will be our guests. Well go live to our reporters in singapore and seoul. With us to kick things off along with willie, joe and me, the
president Ofncil Foreign Rions and author of the book A World In Disarray richard haass. Former Chief Of Staff at the cia and Department Of Defense now an Nbc News National Security analyst, jeremy bash, Senior Adviser and korea chair at csis affairs analystr cha, columnist and Associate Editor for the Washington PostDavid Ignatius and Pulitzer Prize winning historian and author of l of Ameri Theattle r our Better Angels jon meacham. Joe, lets try to put this moment into perspective. This is really, really big Foreign Policy news. It impacts the entire globe. How do you think the president did and how much can we believe, given the patterns we know . Well, first of all, we cant believe anything the north koreans tell us. You would hear that, whether you talked to people who worked in the Obama Administration or the Bush Administration or the Clinton Administration or if you spoke with President Carter who ied his best to bring peace to this region. But every time the north koreans have lied, its hard to take anything out of this. This was one meeting. This is one meeting. Even Dennis Rodman was able to y over to singapore and get in front of cameras and talk about peace in the world. Because there was really no prelude to this, no yearlon talks leading up to this, all we have is really were just actually seeing Spring Training here instead of the world series. If you want to go back, lets go back and talk about what your father did 40 years ago this september. The Camp David Peace Accords were worked through, sweated over, toiled over, and because of that, it gave us lasting
ground peace in the middle east for four decades. We dont know whats going to happen here. Certainly i know everybody in america and across the world hopes that this ends up being successful, but richard haass, right now, there really is no way of judging this because it is a glorified photo op that may start the framework of something significant and as we say around here also, and as weve said, this is a heck of a lot better than what we expected to be happening in on the Korean Peninsula six months ago, which was war. Yeah. The old churchhill line, weve had a couple hours of jaw jaw and the result is, is essentially aspirational. Its the loosest and thinnest of frameworks. If the devil is in the detail theres a lot of devil to be
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. Theres 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 Koreas Nuclear or missile force, i dont 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
desire to reduce the american footprint in the world. We David Ignatius, they get headlines like the one of the New York Post talking about historic summ but again, as richard said, the devil is in the details. Nobody knows where this is going to go, inchose two men shaking hands right now. Joe, it is a historic. It is i think to be fair a breakthrough, a breakthrough especially for kim jongun. He has gotten whats been a north korean goal now for many decades, an american president to sit down, to grant what amounts to recognition of north korean aspirations. The weak part of the agreement that they have signed is that, as richard says, i the barest framework and the hardest questions that torpedoed past u. S. Efforts to deal with the threatening north korean
weapons, namely the problem of verification, isnt addressed at all. Were going to have very difficult negotiations ahead, led on the u. S. Side by mike pompeo, what had the sense of donald trump handing this over today, now tt hes done the cutting the ribbon at the supermarket, handing it over to mike pompeo. I would note one point that it seem that the u. S. Is reserving continuation of sanctions against north korea until there are more concrete, specific promises on the denuclearization front. Thats good to not let up the pressure in this first flush of handshakes and good comments. But i, again, even though something is symbolic, that doesnt mean its not important and today is something important, did happen, and we have to recognize that and then be very clear about what needs to happen to flesh all the
details. And the goal, of course, through all that pomp and circance for the United States is for north korea to get rid of its Nuclear Weapons program. In the joint declarations it reads the d prk works to complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Whats not in there is how or when that would happen. Heres the president talking about that a short time ago. What timetable do you envision for their denuclearization and in the meantime are you thinking about easing any sanctions . You know, scientifically, ive been watching and reading a lot about this and it does take a long time to, you know, pull off complete denuclearization. It takes a long time. Scientifically. You have to wait certain periods of time and a lot of things happen. But despite that, once you start the process, it means its pretty much over. You cant use them. Thats the good news. Thats going to start very soon. I believe thats going to start very soon. We will do it as fasts it can mechanically and physically be
done, steve. And the sanctions . The sanctions will come off when we are sure that the nukes are no longer a factor. Sanctions played a big role. Mr. President , the joint statement does not talk about verifiable or irreversible denuclearization. That is a concession on the part of the United States . Not at all. Use if you look at it, it said, we are going to lets see here, it will be gone. I dont think you can be any more plain than what were asking issues related to the establishment of the new u. S. dprk. We talk about the guarantees and we talk about unwavering commitment to the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. This is the document that we just signed. Did you discuss with chairman kim methods to verify, either with the United States or International Organizations, that very process . Yes, we did and will be
verified. Yes. Will be verified. How will that be achieved . Its going to be achieved by having a lot of people there, and as we develop a certain trust and we think we have done that, Secretary Pompeo has been really doing a fantastic job. His staff, everybody. As we do that we will have a lot of people there workiith them on a lot of other things but this is complete denuclearization of north korea. Those people and it will be verified. Will those people be americans or international . A combination of both. Agency people . Combinations of both. We have talked about it. So victor cha, its clear that hasnt been discussed or worked out at all, the verification of this. That word does not appear in this joint declarations anywhere. Working towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is a worthy goal, but how reasonable is that from the north korean Point Of View . Is he going to do that . Is kim jongun going to do that and how would we verify it . I mean, well the first thing you would do in verifying, you
want a complete and full declarations of all Nuclear Weapons, weapons precursors, facilities, and expertise that then could be verified, identified and located and verified by internatl Atomic Energy agency. These rts of specifics are missing from this document. You wonder like did we really need a summit to get this document . Theres nothing on time frame. I had heard a lot about trying to get some sort of time frame. Particularly the year 2020 into a document of this nature given the president s time in office, and clearly they were not able to get any of those things. Theres a lot of specifics that are missing in this givenhe very high expectations, given the fact that we pulled out of the iran deal and we said we want Something Better than the iran deal. That was 110page document. This doesnt measure up. Big picture on this as someone who has worked on north korea as you have, what was your view of it . Even seeing the two men walking out and the north korean and United States flags next to
each other . Was this a good or bad thing from the United StatesPoint Of View . It was a historic thing. No sitting president has done this before. We need to talk to the north Korean Leader if we want to try to solve this problem because hes the only one that makes decisions. Diplomacy is always about the relative, right, relatively speaking. If we werent doing this we would probably be near an Armed Conflict. Thats where we were headed in December Of 2017. So in that sense, yes, this is a good first start in terms of the diplomacy, but theres still a very long way to go and if you look at the Balance Sheet, it seems like kim got a lot more out of this meeting than trump did. South Korean Military official telling nbc news they really want to look deeper at the president s comment regarding ending of the combined Military Drills. The war games comment. They want to understand the exact meaning or intense behind that. Jeremy bash, lets look at the visuals here. Because the Ribbon Cutting aspect of this in itself is
huge. It has not happened before i feel like the rest of this sits on the lap of mike pompeo and others to actually execute and the question is, can we back into it this way . Is it possible . Well, the imagery is hopeful. It is. Some ways its quite touching. Im saying that tongue in cheek because its that too. The president was gauzy in his praise of a despot and a dictator and i dont think any conversation about this should neglect the fact that kim jongun is a murderer, a thug, starves his own people and putting him on the stage with the president , i dont care what anybody says, is a major concession and a gift to him. That said, dialog is better than military action. But i do agree that the agreement is entirely lopsided. It is the most vague, the most loose, the most unspecific with regards to the verification, the accounting and the Inspection Piece and the most specific, most concrete, most onerous on the United States with respect ending Military Exercises. 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. Theyre getting the suspension of Military Exercises, which im 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. Thats one thing thats 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 theres nothing in here that interrupted the freeze on testing of Nuclear Weapons and ballistic missiles. So i would say thats 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 dont want to exaggerate what im 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
the u. S. south korean alliance, raises questions for japan, sanctions will begin to loosen. Its a pretty good day in beijing. Incredulous to hear the president , his take on how to work all this. They presented a video to the north koreans about all the wealth they could amass in the future and then the president said this they have great beaches. You see that whenever theyre exploding their cannons into the ocean, right. I said, boy, wouldnt that make a great condo. I explained, instead of doing that, you could have the best hotels in the world right there. Think of it from aeal estate perspective. You have south korea, you have china and they own the land in the middle. How bad is that, right . Its great. So i think, joe, might be time for some deep historic parallels and perspective on that comment and so many others. Yeah. I think so. Jon meacham, this is just too easy. Yeah. To know, we hear that history rhymes here. It is its just the same words used verse one and verse two where i mean you can go from whether youre talking about what happened at the courthouse or talking about what happened in versaleuring the Paris Peace Accords of 1919 or kissinger going to paris to end the vietnam war, they talked about beachfront condos. Thats the great thats the great equalizer here between nations. It is that it is donald trump still, donald trump the real estate developer, and he doesnt realize that