According to a Tuesday morning report from Reuters, Donald Trump’s National Security Adviser John Bolton is singing a different tune on North Korea than the boss — and that means that, like most other things Trump ever discusses in public, he’s been lying about the situation on the Korean Peninsula.
After the much-heralded summit in Singapore where Trump broke with long-standing American policy and met with the foreign dictator without conditions at a time and place of Kim’s choosing, even briefly considering paying for Kim’s hotel stay in a presidential suite, Trump went out of his way to paint the meeting as an unmitigated success.
That was expected: The terms of the meeting were so outside the norms of traditional thought on acquiescence to a dictator — like negotiating with terrorists — that if Trump seemed to come up empty-handed, his failure would have been monumental.
And although many pointed out that Trump made concessions to the dictator without getting anything in return, the President assured a wary public that Kim’s promises were as good as gold in a frenzy of tweets surrounding the summit, decrying naysayers as short-sighted and negative:
Heading back home from Singapore after a truly amazing visit. Great progress was made on the denuclearization of North Korea. Hostages are back home, will be getting the remains of our great heroes back to their families, no missiles shot, no research happening, sites closing…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 12, 2018
Just landed – a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office. There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea. President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer – sleep well tonight!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 13, 2018
The denuclearization deal with North Korea is being praised and celebrated all over Asia. They are so happy! Over here, in our country, some people would rather see this historic deal fail than give Trump a win, even if it does save potentially millions & millions of lives!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018
Trump could almost pass his tweets off as naïveté — not that he would ever admit to being naïve — if it weren’t for his bragging about things in the present tense, as though they were already happening.
According to Bolton, they’re absolutely not happening. And it’s not just something he’s saying in Fox interviews — Bolton is saying this everywhere they put a microphone in his face. In a segment on PBS NewsHour, Bolton told the host:
What was significant about Singapore was the North Korean commitment to denuclearize, and they have not taken effective steps to do that.”
Watch the exchange here, including Bolton’s admission that the United States has already given North Korea much of what it wants while getting nothing in return:
Featured image via screen capture
