Trump’s Talks With Kim Jong-un Collapse

Two obese autocrats.

I suspect Der Trumpenführer, is in a particularly foul mood today after (i) coverage of Michael Cohen's testimony before Congress yesterday greatly eclipsed coverage of the Trump/Kim Jong-un talks, and (ii) those talks collapsed, but not until after Trump insanely said he believed that Kim had nothing to do with the the brutal mistreatment suffered by the late American student, Otto Warmbier. For those who have already forgot this young man's death, here is some background:

The 22-year-old University of Virginia student was visiting North Korea with a tour group when he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in March 2016 on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster. He died the next June after he was returned to the United States in a coma.

Given the reality that  NOTHING happens in North Korea without Kim's knowledge and approval, Trump's statement defies belief. 

But back to the collapsed summit. Personally, I believe that Kim played Trump from the start and used both summits to boost his own image abroad and within the police state which is North Korea. Kim never planned to de-nuclearize, or at least not on terms that would ever be acceptable to the USA.  The New York Times looks at the failed talks.  Here are excerpts:

President Trump and Kim Jong-un, North Korea’s leader, abruptly ended their second summit meeting on Thursday when negotiations collapsed after the two sides failed to agree on even the first steps on nuclear disarmament, a peace declaration or reducing sanctions on the North.

“It was about the sanctions,” Mr. Trump said at an afternoon news conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, referring to Mr. Kim’s demand that the United States lift harsh economic sanctions imposed on North Korea with the approval of the United Nations. “Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that.”

The premature end to the negotiations means the diplomacy between the United States and North Korea that has gone on for most of a year remains stalled, even as experts say North Korea continues to produce fissile material to make nuclear warheads.

It also undermines the image Mr. Trump has long cultivated of himself as a tough negotiator who can bring adversaries into a deal.

Mr. Trump said that Mr. Kim had agreed to take an important step toward dismantling a central part of his nuclear program — the Yongbyon enrichment facility — but that Mr. Kim said he would do so only if all sanctions were lifted.

The president and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the North would have to dismantle other parts of the program before all sanctions were lifted.

The collapse of the talks came in the shadow of withering congressional testimony in Washington by Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, who spent hours on Wednesday describing Mr. Trump’s lies and deep character flaws.

The collapse of the talks was a stark departure from the earlier mood of the two-day gathering. On Thursday morning, Mr. Trump and Mr. Kim kicked off the day by meeting one-on-one at the historic Metropole hotel, where they had had an intimate dinner the previous night.

Throughout the summit, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Kim, a ruthless dictator who oversees widespread human rights abuses. He called Mr. Kim a “great leader.”

When asked by a reporter about Otto Warmbier, the American student imprisoned in North Korea who died of brain damage after being returned home in a coma in 2017, Mr. Trump answered with a comment that echoes what he has said in relation to other autocrats: “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.” 

Expect Twitter outbursts and lots of profanity outside of public view from Trump. Kim played him expertly. 

Kremlin-Backed Media Turns on Trump

As noted before, I suspect that Trump and his henchmen colluded with Russia in an effort to throw the 2016 election to Trump.  Many outlets have reported on Vladimir Putin's hatred towards Hillary Clinton who had rightly criticized Russia's rigged elections that now maintain Putin in power.  Add to this Putin's desire to undermine American democracy and/or belief that with Trump in the White House he'd have a stooge that he could easily manipulate. Now, with Trump ensconced in the White House and America's government in chaos, Putin seems to be pulling back on his support for Trump.  Whether this move is to give the appearance that there was no Trump-Putin alliance or to bring further chaos to Washington remains to be seen.  In any event, Kremlin controlled media has gone from lauding Trump to trashing him.  Perhaps if he had not been blinded by his own narcissism, Trump would have known that only a fool would trust Vladimir Putin.  Here are excerpts from Politico:

Kremlin-controlled news outlets used to root for Donald Trump’s election. Now they’re reveling in the chaos and division of his early presidency.

“Sessions Scandal: ‘U.S Headed to Constitutional Crisis,’” reads a March 3 headline on the website of the Kremlin-funded English-language network RT.

“Immigrants See American Dream Fade in Wake of Surge in Hate Crimes,” Sputnik News, another English language outlet bankrolled by the Kremlin, reported the same day.

“America is in the grips of hatred,” the Russian television commentator Dmitry Kiselyov told viewers of the Rossiya 1 network on Sunday night. The popular host, appointed directly by Russian President Vladimir Putin, suggested the political discord could lead to violence in gun-friendly America — “a dangerous combination with free-flowing firearms,” he said.

It’s not that the Kremlin-controlled outlets which all but explicitly rooted for Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton last fall have changed their view of the New York mogul. It’s that Moscow’s main goal was always to undermine the U.S. political system, regardless of who is in the White House, experts said.

“The Russian government is savoring the severe damage to America’s international image as a result of the tumultuous first weeks of the Trump administration’s tenure,” said Andrew Weiss, a former Clinton White House National Security Council official for Russian affairs. That’s particularly true given dimming hopes in Moscow that Trump can now deliver on his pledge to cooperate with Putin.

[S]hifts in how Russia reports on U.S. politics can offer important clues about Putin's latest views of America.  And at the moment, Putin seems to be reveling in the sense of crisis gripping U.S. politics.  “Are Trump’s policies dividing America more than ever?” asked an RT headline last month.

At the same time, Russian coverage of Trump himself took a more critical turn almost immediately after his inauguration. “Trump Draws Noticeably Smaller Inauguration Crowd Than Predecessor,” Sputnik headlined on Jan. 21.

Other stories in various Russian outlets have spotlighted Trump’s dismal poll numbers, criticized his immigration crackdown and even made fun of his handshake. Russian television has replayed biting "Saturday Night Live" sketches spoofing the new president.

The uproar over Trump’s alleged ties to Moscow has put Russian news outlets in an awkward spot. On one hand, they are celebrating the confusion surrounding charges that Trump and his associates might have had illicit ties to Moscow. . . . At the same time, Moscow’s media reject such talk as McCarthyism, and they point a finger at former President Barack Obama as a sinister figure using Russia as a means of undermining Trump.

A "CrossTalk" discussion of Trump’s address to Congress last week used terms reminiscent of Americans mocking Soviet authoritarianism.

“If you recall how they were applauding Trump, I think 95 times they stood up,” said Edward Lozansky, president of the American University in Moscow. “Even during the Brezhnev time I don't recall that the delegates to the party congress stood up and gave standing ovations 95 times.”