Donald Trump’s ill-advised trip to Vietnam to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un for a second time has already been marked by criticism from many for further giving Kim legitimacy in return for nothing, and skepticism from others for the unlikelihood that Trump will be able to actually demonstrate any progress made in talks since the last summit with “Chairman” Kim.
In fact, Twitter — Trump’s sacred space — has been ablaze with jokes about the trip since Trump touched down early Tuesday morning:
50 years later, Trump has finally overcome his bone spurs and made it to Vietnam
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) February 26, 2019
maybe while he’s in Vietnam Trump can visit the final resting place of the soldier who took his spot
— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) February 26, 2019
Today, two unattractive men, who don’t know how to do hair, meet in Vietnam. Both are in their current positions only because their nasty fathers bequeathed them millions of dollars. They will use their limited intellect to pretend to understand issues that could kill us all. pic.twitter.com/1RTpIvkp9J
— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) February 26, 2019
But online criticism aside, Trump has already committed a fairly serious offense against his own citizens, and the summit hasn’t even begun yet. According to dispatches from White House reporters on the scene in Hanoi, Kim Jon Un decided at the last moment to check in to the same hotel they were staying at — the hotel at which the White House Press Pool has been setting up for weeks, using equipment brought from the United States.
The Vietnamese government announced by tweet that the American press would be moved to another hotel:
📢📢📢FYI:
the American Media Center will be relocated from Melia hotel to International Media Center at 91 Tran Hung Dao Hanoi#DPRKUSA #HanoiSummit— MoFAVietNam Spokesperson (@PressDept_MoFA) February 26, 2019
Inside the Melia hotel, a witness told the Washington Post that they saw a showdown between a North Korean official and Vietnamese security at the hotel in the lobby: The North Korean demanded that the press not take pictures or even look at Kim as he arrived.
American reporters were less than impressed, including John Roberts of Fox News:
In nearly 10 years covering the @WhiteHouse, having been on Presidential trips to more than 100 countries, I have never seen the White House Press Corps kicked out of our unilateral press/broadcast center by request of a foreign leader.
— John Roberts (@johnrobertsFox) February 26, 2019
Of course, Trump did nothing, despite the fact that the White House apparently found out in advance that Kim would be staying at the Melia, and the White House elected not to move the press filing center before he arrived, or even notify the reporters who worked so hard to set it up.
Maybe Trump was actually planning on humiliating the press, and letting a hostile foreign dictator do it for him.
Featured image via screen capture
