Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Tuesday that the statement signed by President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after their meeting is so short on details, he’s worried that they participated in a “reality show summit.”
“This communique lists denuclearization as a far off goal, but includes no deal to a pathway to achieve it. No details about how the United States might verify that North Korea has disarmed when they repeatedly lied in the past,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The entire document is short on details.”
[READ: Here’s the full text of ‘historic’ document Trump, Kim signed at North Korea summit]
“We want to see these efforts succeed and ensure that what has just transpired was not a reality show summit,” Schumer said. “What the United States has gained is vague and unifiable at best. What North Korea has gained, however, tangible and lasting.”
He said the U.S. must be “clear-eyed” about what a diplomatic success looks like, but added later he believes Trump has “undercut our foreign policy” by agreeing to freeze joint military exercises with South Korea. He also said that Trump has failed his own standard of a denuclearized North Korea.
“President Trump has not made much progress toward that goal yet and had given up substantial leverage already,” Schumer said. “The leverage of joint military exercises, the leverage of an audience with the president of the United States.”
[Byron York: On North Korea, a president who tried something different]
