Is the upcoming summit in Singapore between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un falling apart in slow motion? In a brief appearance in front of reporters Tuesday as he met with South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Trump brought up the possibility the meeting on June 12 could be delayed or canceled.
“Well, we’re moving along, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said when asked about the state of the summit. “There are certain conditions that we want, and I think we’ll get those conditions. And if we don’t, we don’t have the meeting. And frankly, it has a chance to be a great, great meeting for North Korea and a great meeting for the world. If it doesn’t happen, maybe it will happen later. Maybe it will happen at a different time. But we will see.”
Far from his triumphant rhetoric in the days after announcing the summit, Trump was more conditional. “The meeting is scheduled, as you know, on June 12th in Singapore,” he added. “And whether or not it happens, you’ll be knowing pretty soon.”
It’s the most recent assertion from the administration that the United States is dictating terms on the Kim summit as the North Koreans resume their more aggressive rhetoric toward America. Mike Pence, speaking to Fox News host Martha MacCallum on Monday, said “it would be a great mistake for Kim Jong-un to think he could play Donald Trump.” MacCallum pressed the vice president: “So clearly the president’s still willing to walk away?”
“Well, there’s no question,” Pence replied.
The White House has always maintained the president has this flexibility—that he’s clear-eyed about the challenges in getting Kim to agree to denuclearize. But the truth is that Trump would really like to hold this summit. Despite the language, there’s little in Trump’s public pronouncements that suggest he’s too upset with Kim’s recent talk or unconvinced Kim will agree to whatever preconditions he has to get to Singapore. On Tuesday Trump said the North Korean dictator was “very serious” about denuclearization and called his administration’s pre-summit dealings with Pyongyang a “good experience.”
“It’s been a relationship that seems to be working, and we’ll see how long it continues to work. Hopefully it’s going to work for a long time,” Trump said.
Bottom line: The administration is doing everything it can to prepare for and hold the Singapore summit on June 12. Unless something catastrophic changes the trajectory, expect it to happen. What comes out of the meeting? Right now, that’s anyone’s guess.
Quote of the Day—President Trump, when asked if he has an idea how denuclearization of North Korea would take place: “I do. I have a very strong idea how it takes place. And it must take place. That’s what we’re talking about. It must take place. But I have a very strong idea, and I have very strong opinions on the subject. I also have very strong opinions that North Korea has a chance to be a great country, and it can’t be a great country under the circumstances that they’re living right now. But North Korea has a chance, really, to be a great country. And I think they should seize the opportunity. And we’ll soon find out whether or not they want to do that.”
House Intelligence committee chairman Devin Nunes has been complaining for months that the Department of Justice has refused to turn over to the committee documents related to the early days of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia. On Tuesday, President Trump seemed to say he’s ready to grant Nunes’ request.
“As you know, the Congress would like to see documents opened up. A lot of people are saying they had spies in my campaign. If they had spies in my campaign, that would be a disgrace to this country,” Trump said during a bilateral meeting with South Korean president Moon Jae-in. “General Kelly is going to be setting up a meeting between Congress and the various representatives, and they’ll be able to open up documents, take a look, and find out what happened.”
Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that the meeting would take place Thursday, and that although Trump had tasked Kelly with setting it up, no White House officials would attend. Asked why only Republicans from the Intelligence committee had been invited, Sanders responded that “to my knowledge, the Democrats have not requested that information.”
“So I would refer you back to them on why they would consider themselves randomly invited to see something they’ve never asked to,” Sanders said. Nunes has previously subpoenaed the Justice Department for these documents, going so far as to threaten to hold officials in contempt of Congress.
Over the weekend, the president tweeted a demand for the Department of Justice to “look into whether or not the FBI/DOJ infiltrated or surveilled the Trump campaign for political purposes—and if any such demands or requests were made by people within the Obama administration.” The order came one day after the New York Times reported that FBI informant Stefan Halper had met with Trump campaign advisers in the summer and fall of 2016.
Mueller Watch—From the New York Times: “Michael Cohen’s Business Partner Agrees to Cooperate as Part of Plea Deal”
Must-Read of the Day—My colleague Christopher Caldwell reports from Manila for this week’s cover story on the president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte. Here’s a taste of his excellent piece:
Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt, already entangled in a hopeless snarl of ethics controversies, provoked a fresh round of criticism Tuesday after the EPA physically barred several news organizations from attending a hearing at which Pruitt spoke on contaminants in the nation’s drinking water.
Reporters from the Associated Press and CNN were barred from entering the briefing after a spokesman told them there was no space for them. After the AP’s reporter asked to speak to a public-affairs official, she said, security guards grabbed her shoulders and physically shoved her from the building.
The incident piled a headache on another headache: the subject Pruitt was presenting on, contaminants in drinking water that have been linked to developmental defects, is one over which he has already faced widespread criticism. Politico reported earlier this month that the White House and EPA sought to bury a study raising the alarm about the potential health risks out of fears that it would cause a “public relations nightmare.”
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declined to comment on the dust-up, saying it was “something we are certainly going to look into.”
2018 Watch—Are California Democrats, supposedly the vanguard of the #Resistance, struggling in winnable House races?
“California has become ground zero of the anti-Trump resistance movement, but the unharnessed liberal energy has become an unexpected problem in the party’s battle to win back a House majority,” reports Josh Kraushaar of National Journal. “Democrats are contesting 10 GOP-held House seats there—nearly half of the number they need to win for Nancy Pelosi to become speaker again—but in several of those races, so many candidates are running that the party risks getting shut out of the general election.”
Song of the Day—“Wrecking Ball” by Gillian Welch
