When it was first announced last Thursday that President Trump was to personally meet with North Korea Dictator Kim Jong-un for negotiations, the media’s response varied from optimistic to seething anger. But with some time, it appears as though their consensus is now to denounce the idea as was blatantly obvious on Sunday’s Meet the Press. The entire panel up in arms and fretting that Trump was either going to hand North Korea a victory or blow a gasket at the meeting and start a war.
Moderator Chuck Todd, still bitter because Trump called him a “sleeping son of a b*tch” at a rally the day before, kicked off the discussion with a ridiculously loaded question. “How does any meeting between Trump and Kim not turn into a victory for the North Koreans,” he wondered, acting baffled.
NBC’s Andrea Mitchell was aghast at the idea as she was visibly distraught and seemingly hyperventilating. “It's hard to imagine how it doesn't,” she declared. “First of all, they have had a victory by setting the terms and by having the meeting itself, as you were pointing out. This is what all North Korean leaders have wanted. Three generations have wanted a meeting, legitimacy from an American president.”
For all Mitchell’s rambling about a meeting with Trump “legitimatizing” North Korea, where was that complaint when her network was praising their performance and propaganda at the Olympics? An argument can also be made that Kim’s nuclear weapons program, which reportedly can reach Washington, DC, was a form of legitimacy. Add to that, the U.S. was expending the resources to lead an international effort to isolate the communist country.
It’s also highly hypocritical for Mitchell to whine about someone giving legitimacy to dictators when she’s made a career for herself doing just that. As the Media Research Center had previously documented, she was quite fond of Cuba’s former totalitarian Fidel Castro and was an adamant defender of the Iran nuclear deal and stuck up for them as she opposed Trump.
Yet that didn’t stop Mitchell from spouting off and claiming the administration was ignorant of the issues. “The treasury secretary with you repeated the phrase, ‘denuclearization,’ our objective is denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. That is a trap,” she asserted. She also suggested that what the Trump administration was willing to do was leave our South Korean and Japanese allies high and dry in the region.
Yahoo! News columnist Matt Bai chimed in and wanted to let the panel know he had a serious problem with Trump talking to a dictator: the President’s love for such leaders. According to him:
Except, the problem I have, Gene, is that he has at every turn shown a really unsettling appreciation for or at least lack of antipathy toward tyranny and autocracy. If you are going to sit down with tyrants and autocrats, you have to have, I think, as a president, one would think it's a given to have a deep-felt conviction about the supremacy of democracy and I don’t hear that from him.
Mitchell jumped in again to fret about Trump being so unstable he would lose his temper at the meeting. “But he wants results and he will be impatient. And what is the downside if he gets angry at what he experiences? Then it escalates because you have no other options,” she opined.
“Then you don't have diplomacy to go to because you have exhausted your diplomacy. Then things go boom. That's the scary part,” added Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.
The idea that they would turn down possible peace on the Korean Peninsula just because they detested Trump was absolutely mind-boggling.
The relevant portions of the transcript are below, click expand to read:
NBC
Meet the Press
March 11, 2018
10:57:01 AM Eastern(…)
CHUCK TODD: How does any meeting between Trump and Kim not turn into a victory for the North Koreans?
ANDREA MITCHELL: It's hard to imagine how it doesn't. First of all, they have had a victory by setting the terms and by having the meeting itself, as you were pointing out. This is what all North Korean leaders have wanted. Three generations have wanted a meeting, legitimacy from an American president.
It is not prepared. There was no letter, despite leaks there was. We do not yet know what he is really offering. The treasury secretary with you repeated the phrase, “denuclearization,” our objective is denuclearization of the Korean peninsula. That is a trap! The Korean peninsula means we eliminate our nuclear umbrella from our allies. What we want is for him to give up his illegal weapons, not for us to give up our nuclear security umbrella for South Korea and Japan. This just shows you the lack of, shall we say, competence or familiarity with these details. They do not have a south -- a North/South Korean expert. They don't have an ambassador. Their top expert just quit in frustration, I am told, because he could not -- Tillerson would not take him to White House meetings. There's no one in the house who knows this issue.
(…)
EUGENE ROBINSON: What I think is riskier, though, is to have Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un hurling insults and threats at each other.
[Crosstalk]
And to have a U.S. administration talking about the absurd, catastrophic idea of giving a bloody nose to North Korea, some sort of limited strike, that could immediately mushroom into a local Armageddon, basically. So I think, great, if they want to sit down and talk, that's better than this alternative, which is where we seem to be drifting.
(…)
MATT BAI: Except the problem I have, Gene, is that he has at every turn shown a really unsettling appreciation for or at least lack of antipathy toward tyranny and autocracy. If you are going to sit down with tyrants and autocrats, you have to have, I think, as a president, one would think it's a given to have a deep-felt conviction about the supremacy of democracy and I don’t hear that from him.
[Crosstalk}
MITCHELL: One quick point is, he wants results. If he would go into a meeting – and I don't think it's a great idea at the front end. If he would go in saying how our experts will work and do -- this is a get to know you. But he wants results and he will be impatient. And what is the downside if he gets angry at what he experiences? Then it escalates because you have no other options.
PEGGY NOONAN: Then you don't have diplomacy to go to because you have exhausted your diplomacy. Then things go boom. That's the scary part.
(…)
