On Sunday morning, President Trump explained why he agreed to halt joint military exercises with South Korea during his meeting in Singapore with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“Holding back the ‘war games’ during the negotiations was my request because they are VERY EXPENSIVE and set a bad light during a good faith negotiation,” Trump wrote. “Also, quite provocative. Can start up immediately if talks break down, which I hope will not happen!”
Holding back the “war games” during the negotiations was my request because they are VERY EXPENSIVE and set a bad light during a good faith negotiation. Also, quite provocative. Can start up immediately if talks break down, which I hope will not happen!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 17, 2018
But Trump’s acknowledgement that talks with North Korea could “break down” conflicts with the line he’s been pushing since he returned from Singapore — that he’s already solved the problem.
On Wednesday, Trump tweeted, categorically, that “There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea.” He sought to reassure Americans that as a result, they could now “sleep well.”
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
But if it truly were the case that North Korea’s nuclear threat had ended once and for all, then there would be no need to worry that talks could “break down.”
In reality, the work of trying to solve the problem posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons has just begun. As ThinkProgress detailed, Trump’s tweets indicating otherwise represented a brazen attempt to gaslight the American public. North Korea maintains its nuclear capabilities and the agreement he signed with Kim doesn’t detail any sort of verifiable denuclearization process.
Instead, the agreement merely says, “Reaffirming the April 27, 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the DPRK commits to work toward complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.” It does not detail how North Korea will “work toward complete denuclearization” or any sort of inspection process other countries can rely on to verify it is actually doing so, nor does it require the Kim regime to give up any of his nukes at any particular time.
Nonetheless, in interviews immediately after the summit with George Stephanopoulos and Sean Hannity, Trump insisted that Kim — whom he praised as “a strong guy” with “a very good personality” who is “very strategic” and “very impressive” — could be trusted.
"He trusts me and I trust him," Pres. Trump tells @ABC News' @GStephanopoulos after historic meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un. https://t.co/h4BMyYx3Ca pic.twitter.com/cTNnQec3eG
— ABC News (@ABC) June 12, 2018
During the Hannity interview, Trump claimed that Kim agreed to terms that, for some reason, didn’t make it into the actual written agreement.
And when Stephanopoulos pressed Trump how how “he is going to know that [Kim] is keeping his word,” all Trump could say is “we’re going to be following things, we’re going to be monitoring things.”
Trump’s Sunday morning tweet wasn’t the first time in the last week that he accidentally told the truth about the North Korea situation. During a news conference after the summit, Trump had a moment of radical honesty and revealed how he’ll handle things if Kim — as he’s done in the past — doesn’t live up to his vague pledge to denuclearize.
“Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong,” Trump said. “I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll admit that but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”
On Wednesday, The Wall Street Journal reported that the idea of ending joint military exercises with South Korea — one that took both American and South Korean officials by surprise when it was announced following the Singapore summit — came from Russian strongman Vladimir Putin.
“Trump had an idea about how to counter the nuclear threat posed by North Korea, which he got after speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin: If the U.S. stopped joint military exercises with the South Koreans, it could help moderate Kim Jong Un’s behavior,” the Journal reported.