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Trump Cancels Meeting with Kim Jong-Un
It looks like the Nobel Committee is going to have to find another winner for the Peace Prize, since Donald Trump not only failed to bring peace to the Korean Penninsula, he isn't even going to meet Kim Jong-Un. Yesterday he sent a letter to the North Korean dictator telling him the show is off. Here is the letter, which reads kind of like Trump is breaking up with Kim. The letter is reasonably calm, given the consequences, but it does note: "You talk about nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used. "Mine is bigger than yours" is a common theme with Trump."
Earlier in the day, Kim destroyed his nuclear test site in the presence of a number of foreign reporters. If that was an olive branch or simply a recognition that the site was already badly damaged (possibly beyond repair) is unclear. In any case, the juxtaposition is bad optics for Trump: Kim destroys his test site, then Trump says the meeting is canceled.
Nevertheless, congressional Republicans backed Trump up. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said Trump was "right" to call off the meeting, adding: "I trust his judgment going forward." Democrats weren't so kind. Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) tweeted: "The art of diplomacy is a lot harder than the art of the deal."
On the foreign side of things, the Chinese government is delighted that the talks fell apart, because they like being the puppetmasters on the Korean peninsula. In fact, it is generally believed that they are the ones who insisted Kim take a harder line with Trump, which in turn triggered the final meltdown. The South Koreans, on the other hand, are furious, believing that the Donald cost them the best chance they've had for peace in a long time. South Korean President Moon Jae-in is taking a particular beating, since he stuck his neck out here, and now has gotten burned.
The Hill has five takeaways from Thursday's news:
- The likelihood of war has increased
- This could be a negotiating tactic (by Trump)
- Rocky relations with China may have had a ripple effect
- Both sides got cold feet
- Trump's hawks flex their muscles
What happens next is really anyone's guess. For one thing, The Democrats are going to point out that the world's greatest negotiator blew it the first time he had a serious opponent. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is going to have a harder time securing cooperation from Moon & Co. in the future, whether on trade, or in future North Korea maneuvering. And future negotiations with China just got more difficult, rather than less. Finally, world leaders in general are going to take note that working with Trump is a good way to get left holding the bag, and they are going to be even more leery of chancing it. As the saying goes, "Fool me once..." (V & Z)
James Clapper: Russia Swung the Election to Trump
The new book by former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper concludes that the Russians handed Donald Trump the election. According to Clapper:
Of course the Russian efforts affected the outcome. Surprising even themselves, they swung the election to a Trump win. To conclude otherwise stretches logic, common sense, and credulity to the breaking point. Less than eighty thousand votes in three key states swung the election. I have no doubt that more votes than that were influenced by this massive effort by the Russians.
Clapper is now a private citizen. Nevertheless, he knows a lot of spooks and is probably much better plugged in than your garden-variety private citizen. Was there active collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians? He doesn't know, but he views Trump's "aggressive indifference" to the intelligence community's clear conclusion that the Russians were deeply involved in the election as "damning enough."
In early January 2017, less than 2 weeks before the inauguration, Clapper presented Trump with a report making it unambiguous that Putin had ordered the campaign to help Trump and that it was multifaceted. It documented attacks on state and local voter rolls as well as the massive propaganda effort via social media and other channels. It contained much more detail than has been made public. Trump's reaction was to discredit the report and the entire intelligence community. From the first day he took office, he has tried mightily to convince his base that Clapper, the FBI, and the entire intelligence community are liars and only he is speaking the truth. (V)
Republicans, Democrats Get Briefing on Informant
As planned, the Dept. of Justice gave two briefings about the FBI informant who talked to three members of the Trump campaign. The first briefing was at the White House, and included Trump staffers and allies. The second one happened on Capitol Hill, and included the Republican and Democratic leaders of Congress.
Nobody has leaked anything substantive about the briefings, so little is known about exactly how in-depth they were. The major issue, thus far, is that the first meeting included White House Chief of Staff John Kelly and Trump lawyer Emmet Flood. The Democrats, led by House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), said that was inappropriate, since some of the documents reviewed on Thursday could show up in a court case lodged against the President. This complaint, of course, did not change anything. (Z)
Stone Could Be a Bigger Threat to Trump Than Cohen
While Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen knows where a lot of skeletons are buried, his old friend Roger Stone has known Trump longer and has a broader knowledge of Trump's personal, business, and political histories. Currently, special counsel Robert Mueller has been interviewing Stone's friends, assistants, protégés, and ex-drivers. Stone has said he is "preparing" for a possible indictment because Mueller knows that Stone seemed to know that Hillary Clinton's email account was hacked before anyone else. That could indicate that he was in direct or indirect contact with the hackers.
Gwenda Blair, who has written a biography of Trump, puts Stone in the same category as Trump's adult children, son-in-law, Michael Cohen, body man Keith Schiller, and executive assistant Rhona Graff. But unlike Trump's kids, Stone has had multiple high-profile feuds with Trump. In a published article in 2008 in the New Yorker, Trump once said: "Roger is a stone-cold loser. He always tries taking credit for things he never did." More recently, Trump hired Stone in June 2015 to help out with the campaign. By August, Stone was gone. Trump says he was fired. Stone said he quit. Either way, there was a lot of bad blood.
A key question is what Stone will do if indicted. Will he stonewall or will he flip? A long-time friend of Stone's said: "While he really supports the president's agenda and the President of the United States, he's not taking a bullet for him. That ain't happening." Stone's friends say he won't fall on his sword for Trump, but Trump's friends think he will make G. Gordon Liddy, who spent 52 months in prison rather than rat on Richard Nixon, look like a tower of Jell-O. We may soon find out. (V)
Trump Thrilled with NFL's New Policy, but Maybe He Shouldn't Be
Donald Trump was on Fox & Friends on Thursday morning, as planned, and a major topic of conversation was the NFL's newly-implemented policy aimed at stopping players from kneeling during the national anthem. "You have to stand proudly for the National Anthem and the NFL owners did the right thing," declared Trump. "You have to stand proudly for the National Anthem or you shouldn't be playing. You shouldn't be there. Maybe you shouldn't be in the country," he continued. Because nothing says "freedom of expression" like threatening protesters with deportation.
As with nearly everything he gets involved with, however, Trump may have created an unexpected headache for himself. On Thursday, Mark Geragos—the lawyer who represents Colin Kaepernick, the first player to kneel—directed attention to 18 U.S. Code § 227, which says that federal employees (and the president and vice president are specifically included, in section b3) are forbidden to "influence, solely on the basis of partisan political affiliation, an employment decision or employment practice of any private entity." The code was specifically written to keep a president or senator from calling up a newspaper and getting an overly critical reporter fired, but it very clearly describes what happened here as well.
There's no indication that anyone in the Justice Dept. is planning to prosecute Trump for this, but if they do decide to press the matter, the punishment is up to 15 years in prison along with loss of any office held. It seems unlikely that, with more weighty issues like collusion, obstruction of justice, and possible money laundering, that this could be the thing that brings the Trump administration down. However, as we have been wont to point out, Al Capone went up the river for tax evasion because that was the easiest thing to prove. So, anything is possible. (Z)
Senior Republicans Blast Trump's Car Tariff
Donald Trump has threatened to impose a tariff on imported cars in the name of national security. It is not going over well with senior Republicans in Congress, and several of them blasted Trump yesterday. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said the move would amount to a tax on American car buyers. Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said Congress should revoke Trump's power to impose tariffs. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) said the administration is using trade policy too transactionally.
In addition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly opposes the tariffs and said if imposed, they could start a trade war. In a statement, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, which represents GM, Ford, Fiat Chrysler, and Toyota, said: "We are confident that vehicle imports do not pose a national security risk to the U.S. Trump's only real ally here is the United Auto Workers Union, whose president, Dennis Williams, told reporters: "The United States became a dumping ground for a lot of countries at a very low cost.
Trump's remarks might be an attempt to bludgeon Canada and Mexico into giving him his way renegotiating NAFTA. However, those countries undoubtedly have noted the domestic opposition to Trump's plan and are unlikely to give much ground when they know he may well give in to congressional and industry opposition without them doing anything. So far, he tends to cave whenever there is serious opposition to anything he proposes (V)
Trump's Approval Rating Is Now Up to 45%
Donald Trump's approval keeps creeping up. A new Harris poll puts it at 45%, the same percentage who say the economy is on right track. On the other hand, the co-director of the poll, Mark Penn, said the Democrats are maintaining their edge on the generic congressional ballot and remained poised to win the House. (V)
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