Party. Well, i think theres a good chance that we will know. I think youll have a lot of unintended consequences. Not just consumers but businesses. As republicans plot ways to reverse the move, even the workers President Trump claims to be protecting expressing mixed feelings. Going to bring money into whatever community that business is in. I think its very shortsighted. I think it was focused maybe because of the upcoming election. And this morning, growing fears that the new tariffs could cripple an otherwise strong jobs market. The u. S. Adding 313,000 jobs in february. Way above expectations. We begin today with the news that after months of personal attacks and insults, against north Korean Leader kim jongun, President Trump has stunned the world and his own white house, agreeing to meet kim facetoface. Its being characterized as the Foreign Policy gamble of extraordinary proportions. Certainly the biggest of the trump presidency. Ive got a fantastic team to explain what all this means. But before we get to them, i want to underscore just how unprecedented and consequential this meeting could be. Frankly, its nearly impossible to overstate these two men, both of them being known for being impetuous and erratic. The first leaders from the u. S. And north korea to ever speak facetoface. Why not start with lower level officials . Well, according to a senior white house official, its because kim jongun is the only one whose decisions matter. That could be said of our own president as well. As weve seen with this and with the tariffs announcement just this week. And while the benefits of such a meeting are obvious, there are huge risks as well. Remember, this has been tried at least twice before under both president clinton and president george w. Bush and both times the North Koreans made promises they would not keep. This time, kim is reportedly committed to denuclearization, although his definition of that is likely different from that. The announcement seems to catch trumps own secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, by surprise. Coming just hours after he said negotiations were, quote, a long way off. This morning, tillerson tried to clarify what he meant. Respect to talks with north korea versus negotiations, and i think it seems to be something that people will struggle with the difference. My comments will be the conditions. Weve been saying for some time were open to talks. On thursday, the south korean official who delivered kims message to the white house said the north Korean Leader was eager to meet with trump. Speaking about a president known to respond to flattery, he also said it was trumps policies that paved the way for north koreas decision. I explained to President Trump that his leadership and his maximum pressure policy, together with international solidarity, took us to this juncture. I express president moon jay ins personal gratitude for President Trumps leadership. Its worth noting that official you just heard from is one of only two people we know of who have met personally with both trump and kim jongun. The other, ready for this, dennis rodman. If nothing else, that shows you just how unusual this meeting will be and how fraught with potential missteps. Now, remember, trump has gone rogue before. Last july, remember, he met with vladimir putin, totally unplanned for an hour and relied solely on an interpreter provided by the kremlin. Its not clear what will happen with kim jongun. Will the two men really be one on one . What about the secretary of state or other diplomats . Someone in the room with, say, real Foreign Policy or diplomatic chops. One thing for sure, the u. S. Is sorely lacking when it comes to asia. Remember, the chief negotiator recently said hes leaving and we still dont have a permanent u. S. Ambassador to south korea. Theres nothing to indicate kim is willing to do that. And just getting trump and kim jongun in the same room frankly is a big win for north korea. The concern for the rest of the world is trump will be seen as legitimizing a man who has done horrific things to his own people. Remember, kim jongun had members of his own family murdered, including his uncle and his half brother. And according to a south korean think tank, he personally ordered the execution of more than 300 others. The International Bar system reports he has commit aefrd single crime against humanity there is, including persecution and enslavement. The political prisons are holding more than 80,000 people as we speak. People who have been deemed to be enemies of the state. Theyre arrested, theyre imprisoned and executed along with their families. Hundreds of thousands of people have died there. So how is the Trump Administration going to balance all of that with the possibility of achieving some historic agreement . Let me bring in Nbcs Kelly Odonnell who is at the white house for us. So in the bush and clinton administrations, as you know, kelly, even lower level talks involve months of painstaking preparation. Now we have a president who simply has decided to do this. Are they ready . Well, i think there are two answers to this. Things really reverberated. You can tell from the body language. The shuttle diplomacy was closed doors in the west wing as top officials were going back and forth, hoping to sort this out. With the Vice President just steps behind him. Having been personally briefed by the south Korean National security adviser. And it would appear only minutes later he popped his head into the Briefing Room. Wed never seen him in the Briefing Room when reporters were present to make this announcement. So there was no rollout here at all. This was a decision made by President Trump to not only accept the offer but to go forward in making it public. In the past, there have been these kind of entrees into hot spots around the world where perhaps there was an invitation made but it wasnt made public immediately, it would go through other channels. The surprise factor is on setting of meeting and high stakes of having two leaders coming facetoface. There has been a lot of work behind the scenes, through the state department and there have been efforts made that really the president has been forecasting in his public statements over a period of months of a willingness to talk. Remember, when the fire and fury comments happened in august, where the president was punching back after kim jongun had made threats against the United States and guam, that fire and fury rattled a lot of people internationally, concerns about the potential for military action. So there has been a plan going on through, oddly enough, olympic diplomacy, through the breakthrough they had there with south and north korea coming together, for an opening for some kind of talks. We didnt expect those talks to happen at this level where you would have the two leaders facetoface. But what we know about President Trump is that he is someone who believes that the power of the personal connection can really make a difference. And thats part of what will play out here. Now, will this be the smart cookie summit . Will it be the little rocket man con fab . We dont know yet. The president has used derogatory terms against kim jongun. But hes done that domestically too. He will level an adversary or political opponent with difficult words and then sit with them here at the white house trying to work something out. So theres a surprise factor for sure. Theres some groundwork behind the scenes, but none of it in the traditional sense of all the paperwork going back and forth and legitimate concerns about how willing the North Koreans are to live up to all of this. Song un li is a professor at tufts university. Ambassador richardson. Evan mcmullin a former cia operative who ran for president in 2016. Governor, north korea, as we said, squarely in your whe wheelhouse, including the release after negotiations of americans there. President trump thinks he can outnegotiate kim jongun. He goes into this without having gotten any guarantees going in. What are your thoughts . Well, its very risky, very unorthodox. Im worried that kim jongun is setting us in a trap. But i support the president. Things couldnt possibly be worse in the Korean Peninsula right now. I think south korea deserves enormous credit for their diplomacy. The olympics. I think kim jongun is evolving into a strategic thinker you think he really is evolving . Hes evolving in a positive way because i think he has an end game. I am concerned that the president is going to start tweeting the fire and fury might come back, the little rocket man. I think its important that we prepare, that we let negotiating team led by the state department, department of defendant, set up some goals. Were not going to get complete denuclearization. But its worth it if we reduce tensions. If maybe we get those three americans out. The recovery of the remains of our soldiers of the korean war. Theres some 3,000. Some kind of missile freeze. Some kind of conventional weapons freeze. Look, this is going to take a long time, this negotiation. Its a very risky gamble. But i think its worth taking. Thats my view. Professor lee, you know this country as well as anyone. So on the surface, it sounds like kim jongun is saying all the right things. Even, quote, committing to due nuclearization. Is he evolving or is he setting a trap . Kim is taking a page out of his daddys. Kim jonguns 2000 playbook. We had the first ever interkorean summit. We found out the south Korean Leader has paid kim jongun under the table 500 million as an entrance fee. Having changed the atmospherics, kim turned to washington and sent his highest ranking military man to washington, d. C. In october 2000, vice marshal, who met with president clinton and conveyed his bosss invitation to pyongyang. That led to secretary of state Madeleine Albrights visit to pyongyang three weeks later toasting kim jongil and president clinton in his last weeks in office had a plan, really was determined to visit north korea, but it didnt pan out. He ran out of time in the wake of the Al Gore George w. Bush vote recount fiasco. So why is kim doing this . Did he wake up all of a sudden on new years day and had a moment of epiphany and decided to be a nice guy . Probably not. He seeks to dilute, weaken, the building up of the International Sanctions regime. Kim seeks to buy time and money with which to perfect his own Nuclear Posture review. And to buy a free pass for the next big provocation, a Hydrogen Bomb test, or a more powerful test. So theres an element of ruthless rash nat in all this and the path to pyongyang will be strewn with more traps. I dont think theres any doubt on anybodys mind there are two things for sure that kim wants. He wants stature, a meeting with the leader of the free world would give him. He wants some of those sanctions put away. He also wants to continue to be a nuclear power. I dont think anybody is suggesting that hes willing to give Everything Else up. But when you approach Something Like this, as Kelly Odonnell was talking about, theres usually a process. But let me play part of what Rex Tillerson said just this morning. President trump has said for some time that he was open to talks, that he was willing to meet with kim jongun when conditionings were right. I think in the president s judgment that time has arrived now. But you can make the argument trump didnt decide this, kim decided this. There are a lot of analysts who said in south korea kim jonguns sister outplayed Vice President pence in the diplomacy diplomat at the olympics. I think the president has spent his first year in office implying an increasing more pressure on north korea. I think hes right to do that. Hes done that through a variety of means including sanctions. I think what we see here with mr. Kim now being open and calling for these negotiations with the president is actually a sign that he is becoming uncomfortable with the status quo. Thats the good news. The troubling news is that hes of course going to use hes going to try to shape and change the status quo in a way thats beneficial to him. And thats what hes doing. Thats where my where my concern comes in. Negotiations and talks can be a good thing too. But what we cant have is a situation where we go into these talks unprepared, giving up quite a lot. I think many are quick to say, well, if the president will meet with mr. Kim, then that will that will certainly suggest some legitimacy that mr. Kim doesnt now have. And they dismiss that as merely diplomatic etiquette or protocol and a concern we shouldnt have, but actually, that can have a tangible concern. It can make it harder for us to constrain mr. Kim down the road. What we need to do is use the pressure, use the situation in which mr. Kim i believe is increasingly uncomfortable with the status quo. And make sure that we maintain an upper hand in the approach. I think to do that there need to be some steps before the president sits directly with mr. Kim. The clock is ticking. He said this is going to happen by may. And we know some of the things the president has said over recent months. Let me just remind folks. Lets play some of that. The era of strategic patience with the north korean regime has failed. And frankly, that patience is over. North korea best not make any more threats to the United States. They will be met with fire and fury. Like the world has never seen. Rocket man is on a Suicide Mission for himself and for his regime. I really believe that it makes sense for north korea to come to the table and to make a deal thats good for the people of north korea and the people of the world. Song yun, how does this set the table for this meeting . Has kim jongun just not heard or has he forgotten all of that . Kim jongun has made no concession whatsoever to seemingly offer the concession of, oh, in the meantime, we wont conduct any more nuclear and missile tests or that we are amenable to due nuclearization talks. Its basically a criminal pledging to simply uttering that i will henceforth abstain from those illegal activities. Those activities are prohibited under more than ten u. N. Security council resolutions. What does he seek again to dilute, to weaken the sanctions regime and then to trap the United States into making meaningful concessions like a peace treaty which would call into question the very recent withdrawal of troops. And the weakening of u. S. Support for south korea. President trump said something very powerful in addressing the South Korean Parliament last year. He said, speaking of the basic internal dynamic in the Korean Peninsula, the sheer existence, the very existence of a thriving democratic south korean republic threatens the very survival of the north korean dictatorship. And that is true. So north korean, for north korea, prevailing over the south, getting the u. S. To abandon south korea and having its way with south korea and one day obliterating this prosperous free democracy called south korea, that is a nonnegotiable proposition. He has a plan and is making great advances in reaching that plan. So take us inside that room, bill richardson. Because you had a nickname undersecretary of thugs. Bill clinton said that was because the bad guys liked you. But youve dealt with folks not just in north korea but in other regimes like it. Given that litany of what we know about kim jongun and that he is a murderer, what is President Trump up against when he goes into that room . Well, hes up against somebody that has been underestimated. That weve known very little about. Hes 34 years old, educated in the west, like his father, likes American Sports and movies, but we know very little about him. This is the first time hes met with an envoy, the south korean, who apparently was impressed. Now, heres my thought about kim jongun. And i think the president is also a negotiator. Sometimes i worry about his methods. But kim jongun wants to stay in power, number one, at all costs. Number two, he knows his country is starving. Economic, tremendous economic problems. Three, he knows in a military conflict with the u. S. , hes going to lose. Four, sanctions are biting. Theres no question. Theyre working, they could be working faster and more efficiently if the chinese did some real enforcement. So im not saying hes on the ropes, kim jongun. But im saying that the United States needs to have some very clear objectives. We cannot have any distance with south korea. Theyre our allies. But south korea has been helpful in this process. We have to reassure japan that theyre not going to be vulnerable. And theyre very nervous. I think china has to be brought in right now because they have been helpful, even though they play games with everybody. Russia used to be part of the sixparty talks. Id probably keep the russians away right now. Because theyre meddling too much against our interests. So i want the summit to be a framework for future negotiations. Were not going to make a deal right there. But set up a process where we have a strategy, a diplomatic team, a military team with goals on denuclearization, on missile activity, conventional weapons and also i think, governor, thats the real question here, were just about out of time, but to the point of clear objectives, do you believe the president has them . Do you believe the president went into this with Foreign Policy in mind . Or as som