The White House said a combination of North Korea’s “strange lack of judgment,” “broken promises over the last weeks,” and a failure to communicate forced President Trump to cancel on Thursday the planned June 12 summit between himself and Kim Jong-un. “The ball is in North Korea’s court,” a senior White House official said Thursday afternoon.
Trump released a letter to Kim Thursday morning in which he canceled the meeting. “I was very much looking forward to being there with you,” he wrote. “Sadly, based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting. Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but to the detriment of the world, will not take place.”
The “most recent statement” refers to a North Korean official’s statement, released on Wednesday, blasting Vice President Mike Pence as a “political dummy” and threatening (in the White House’s estimation) a nuclear weapons showdown. Trump, who the White House official says dictated “every word” of the letter himself, also left the door open to revisit a summit with Kim, even on the original June 12 date. “It’s possible that the existing summit could take place or a summit at some later date,” he said at an even at the White House. “Nobody should be anxious. We have to get it right.”
But the White House official downplayed the possibility Trump and Kim could still meet in Singapore at that date next month. “We’ve lost quite a bit of time that we’d need” to prepare for the summit, the official said. “June 12 is in ten minutes.”
Among the “trail of broken promises” from the North Korean regime that gave the president “pause,” the White House official says, were: Pyongyang’s objection to routine U.S. military exercises with the South Koreans; the failure to allow weapons experts to observe the dismantling of a major component of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program; and the fact that several American officials were stood up by the North Koreans last week in Singapore in what was supposed to be a meeting to prepare for the summit. “They waited and they waited,” said the White House official. “The North Koreans never showed up.”
The Big Question—The White House claims that Trump “wants to give every opportunity to a peaceful resolution of this crisis,” and his letter and comments Thursday reflect that. The president’s policy, his aides maintain, remains complete denuclearization of North Korea. Kim’s supposed commitment to denuclearization—and the administration’s belief in that commitment—is what led to the summit in the first place. But how can Trump and the United States trust any promises Kim makes about denuclearization now?
“The president has been willing to keep the door open from the beginning for a dialogue process, and he continues to do so,” said the senior White House official. Why keep it open when the North Koreans continue to deceive, even before the summit?
“They don’t make it easy,” the official finally admitted.
Profile of the Day—From Politico: “George Conway’s Tweets Raise West Wing Eyebrows”
The Justice Department provided a confidential briefing to a bipartisan group of lawmakers Thursday to answer questions about the FBI’s use of an informant to investigate whether the Trump campaign had been infiltrated by the Russian government during the 2016 presidential election. The meeting came days after President Trump announced he would instruct the Justice Department to look into whether or not his campaign had been “infiltrated or surveilled . . . for political purposes.”
The meeting, which was set up by the White House, came after a 24-hour scramble in which the congressional participants invited were changed several times. As initially scheduled, the meeting only included participants from Trump’s Republican allies in the House Intelligence committee. After Democrats protested, the invitation was expanded to include the so-called “Gang of Eight”—the bipartisan congressional leaders who are regularly briefed on classified intelligence matters—and then expanded again to include Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence committee.
Democrats were further enraged by the fact that the president’s attorney Emmet Flood and his chief of staff John Kelly were present at the outset of the meeting, although both departed before classified information was discussed. “Although he did not participate in the meetings which followed, as the White House’s attorney handling the special counsel’s investigation, his involvement—in any capacity—was entirely improper, and I made this clear to him,” Schiff said of Flood in a statement.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the pair was merely there “to relay the president’s desire for as much openness as possible under the law.”
“They also conveyed the president’s understanding of the need to protect human intelligence services and the importance of communication between the branches of government,” Sanders added.
Photo of the Day
President Trump issued a presidential pardon to deceased boxing legend Jack Johnson Thursday, citing the need “to correct a wrong in our history” more than a century after the African-American heavyweight champ was arrested for having a relationship with a white woman.
“They say he violated the Mann Act, and he had a conviction that occurred during a period of tremendous racial tension in the United States,” Trump said at the signing. “Johnson served 10 months in federal prison for what many view as a racially motivated injustice. He was treated very rough, very tough.”
But, Trump said, Johnson went on “to reach the heights of boxing in the boxing world, and inspired generations with his tenacity and a very independent spirit.”
Johnson was arrested and convicted in 1912 under the Mann Act, an early law that attempted to cut down on prostitution and human trafficking by making it a crime to transport a woman across state lines “for immoral purpose.” Johnson was arrested for violating the act even though the woman in question, his future wife, was his willing partner.
In his remarks, Trump largely stuck to praising Johnson and bantering with the boxing celebrities in attendance, including current heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, former heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, and silver screen heavyweight champion Sylvester Stallone. But the president apparently couldn’t resist taking a small swipe at his predecessor as well.
“Congress has supported numerous resolutions calling for Johnson’s pardon,” Trump said. “No president ever signed it, surprisingly. They thought it was going to be signed in the last administration, and that didn’t happen. So that was very disappointing for a lot of people.”
Must-Read of the Day—Joseph Epstein, on Tom Wolfe, in the new issue of magazine. Here’s a taste:
Song of the Day—“Off the Record (Live)” by My Morning Jacket
