Tag: North Korea

When President Donald Trump stunned the world last year by agreeing to hold a summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un—the first-ever meeting between an American president and a North Korean head of state—it felt like a punch in the gut to South Korean conservatives. Hard-liners on North Korea, they were already roiling from corruption scandals that had brought down President Park Geun-hye with massive protests in 2016 and led to the election of President Moon Jae-in. Now, after Trump’s abrupt decision late last month to walk out of talks with North Korea during his second summit with Kim, he has pulled the rug out from under South Korean liberals, most of all Moon. South Korea’s president, who has pushed for diplomacy with the North, was all set to celebrate what he thought would be a successful summit in Hanoi. Instead, Trump’s moves on North Korea have roiled South Korea’s politics even more. ...

(CNN)Early warning signs are flashing for President Donald Trump on some of his core arguments on immigration, the economy and North Korea that are central to his 2020 re-election message. Trump has often claimed that he is presiding over the "greatest economy in the history of our country." And a rise in crossings across the southern border — while playing into Trump's claims of a crisis in the short term, contradict his wider argument that hardline enforcement policies are the best way to manage immigration and suggest his totemic political plan for a border wall may be ignoring the real problem. Many Republican strategists believe that a perceived race to the left by Democrats could give the GOP the best chance of keeping the White House in 2020. There have been other recent warning signs for the economy. Annual growth for 2018 fell just short of Trump's 3% target and according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis quarterly growth figures have been on the decline for the last three quarters, possibly reflecting the fading stimulatory influence of the GOP tax cuts. In Trump's new budget to be unveiled on Monday, the administration predicts 3.2% annual growth his year, 3.1% growth in 2020, and 3% GDP expansion the following year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Trump's failure to reach a deal with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un at their second summit in Vietnam last month dealt a blow to the President's most important foreign policy venture. The administration used the figures to argue that the immigration crisis that Trump has proclaimed in an effort to win support for his border wall is getting worse. The White House will ask Congress for $8.6 billion for the wall in the new budget, sources told CNN, prompting a quick response from Democrats at the start of a new showdown over immigration, following last year's government shutdown drama.

The single most important fact in American political life is the degree that so many Americans believe, with a deep sentiment of dread and foreboding, that the Trump presidency has become a national nightmare that profoundly impacts American civic life in dangerous and disturbing ways. When President Trump recently spent more than two hours giving a bizarre and sometimes incoherent speech that was a rambling litany of angry insults and a tirade describing himself as a horribly aggrieved victim, he appeared to be a man in the middle of a nightmare. Would an innocent man declare total political war against special counsel Robert Mueller, who his former White House counsel Ty Cobb wisely says is a national hero running an honest investigation? The president’s nightmare is spending the next two years trapped in a spider’s web of federal, state and congressional investigations with potentially catastrophic consequences, while he cannot spend a penny of appropriated money or enact a dime of tax cuts without permission from a powerful Democratic Speaker and resurgent Democratic House. Huge masses of Democratic and independent voters are enduring the nightmare — which they will act to end with a spectacular turnout in November 2020 — of a president at war against their hopes and dreams for their lives and our country. Many of America’s finest and most principled conservatives are enduring the nightmare of a conservatism they have long championed with honor being shredded and corrupted by a president who is a conservative in name only, and his allies who demonize national heroes from Mueller to John McCain and attack the FBI for investigating the Russian dictator subverting our democracy and seeking to impose on America the president of his choice. What would Ronald Reagan think of Trump’s extravagant praise of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un? A solid majority of voters fervently want the Trump presidency to end. The answer to the big lie is the big truth. Here is how Democrats frame the election and win big in 2020, most similar to the message from Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), whom I will support if he seeks the presidency.

Satellite images appear to show that North Korea has begun rebuilding a portion of a facility previously used to test long-range missile engines, analysts said, raising potential questions about the future of US-North Korea negotiations. #CNN #News

Good Monday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • In his meeting with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, President Trump made a bet that his force of personality and view of himself as a consummate dealmaker would succeed where three previous presidents had failed. • Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, appeared to signal support for a resolution that would overturn Mr. Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, which would provide the crucial vote needed for the Senate to pass the measure. • In an effort to accommodate Mr. Trump, the nation’s intelligence agencies have revamped their presentations — instead of terrorism or spies, they focus on which countries are making money or gaining financial advantage. • Mr. Trump addressed CPAC, the annual gathering of conservatives, for over two hours on Saturday. Here is a fact-check of 15 claims from his speech. • Mr. Trump told the CPAC crowd that he planned to issue an executive order that would put universities’ federal aid at risk if they did not protect the viewpoints of students of all political stripes. The issue of free speech on college campuses has for years been a cause célèbre among young conservative activists. • During his last presidential campaign, Senator Bernie Sanders offered a policy-focused message almost entirely devoid of personal details.

NPR's Mary Louise Kelly speaks with Susan Glasser of The New Yorker and David Brooks of the The New York Times, about Michael Cohen's testimony and the U.S.-North Korea summit. I think... KELLY: Relief that no bad deal was cut... GLASSER: Correct, that no deal... KELLY: ...That that would be worse than... GLASSER: ...Is better than bad deal. And just because President Trump didn't make a bad deal with North Korea, just because I think most people in both parties do agree that talking even fruitlessly is better than threatening nuclear war, that doesn't mean that this wasn't an enormous embarrassment for the Trump administration and, I think, for the United States. GLASSER: ...Human rights of all kinds, I just don't - I don't see that as a win for the United States. Susan, years from now, will we remember this testimony as a footnote or the moment that winds shifted or as neither of the above? However... KELLY: 'Cause there were so many... GLASSER: Well, exactly. KELLY: David, you came at the testimony this week - your writing in The Times about it - from a moral perspective. Republicans are morally numb about Donald Trump. And every time you stereotype someone, you're ripping at it. KELLY: Words to close the week from The New Yorker's Susan Glasser and The New York Times' David Brooks.

The family of Otto Warmbier rebuked President Donald Trump for siding with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, who denied knowledge of their son's maltreatment during his imprisonment. #CNN #News

Aa Aa Summit breakdown High hopes in Hanoi come crashing down as US President Donald Trump walks away from Kim Jong Un. The summit between the US and North Korean leaders ended without a deal after Kim insisted that the US lift all sanctions on the country. The main goal of the summit was to shut down one of North Korea's biggest nuclear plants. While the summit in Hanoi didn't achieve this, Trump reaffirmed his commitment to reaching such an agreement, saying: "Speed is not important to me. What is important is that we do the right deal." Nuclear fears From North Korea and Iran to Pakistan and India — are we in a new era of nuclear proliferation? After the US-North Korea summit in Hanoi ended with no promises of denuclearisation, some have begun to worry that nuclear weapons may once again become a pressing threat. As the US and Russia have pledged to withdraw from the INF treaty, global worries have only grown. Hitting a bad note After 15 years of participation, Ukraine has made the decision to step aside from this year's Eurovision Song Contest amid a controversial contractual disagreement with its nominee. Watch Thursday's full Raw Politics episode by clicking on the player above.

Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today. _____________________ • Internal memos reveal that President Trump ordered his chief of staff to grant Jared Kushner, his son-in-law and senior adviser, a top-secret security clearance last year, overruling concerns from intelligence officials. • Mr. Trump bet that his self-described skills as a master negotiator would be enough to persuade North Korea to renounce its nuclear weapons program. In failing, he laid bare the risks of one-to-one diplomacy. • Under a new Pentagon plan being offered in peace talks with the Taliban, all American and foreign troops would leave Afghanistan in the next three to five years. “It’s 100 percent not true,” one senior official said. • For many Americans, the testimony of Mr. Trump’s ex-fixer Michael Cohen was just one more television show, doing little to change how they already felt about the president, good or bad. • Mr. Cohen’s testimony about Mr. Trump’s potentially felonious conduct has not moved House Democratic leaders closer to initiating impeachment proceedings. They see endless, overlapping investigations as a more damaging course of action. • Mr. Trump and his top economic advisers have sent a series of conflicting messages about the status of trade talks with China: A deal is either imminent, still out of reach or somewhere in between.

President Donald Trump defended North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un when confronted Thursday about American college student Otto Warmbier, who died days after he was repatriated from the pariah state with brain damage. “He tells me he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word,” Trump said of how he could continue calling the young dictator “my friend.” Trump said he has talked to Kim about Warmbier, and that Kim “feels very badly.” “I don’t believe that he would have allowed that to happen. It just wasn’t to his advantage,” Trump added. “Those prisons are rough, rough places and bad things happen.” The Brief Newsletter Sign up to receive the top stories you need to know right now. View Sample Sign Up Now Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was touring North Korea when he was arrested for allegedly stealing a propaganda sign. He was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor. North Korean officials have said Warmbier suffered a brain injury after contracting botulism, a form of poisoning, but U.S. doctors found no evidence of the condition. After Warmbier’s death, Trump vowed to press North Korea on its abysmal human rights record. But as Trump has sought to seal the denuclearization of North Korea in talks with Kim, the issue has been relegated to the back burner. Human rights was not on the agenda at either of the summits, although in Singapore Trump briefly said the meeting wouldn’t have happened without Warmbier.