Weekly Standard
Fred Barnes

In February, then-secretary of state Rex Tillerson was informed by a North Korean envoy that Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un wanted to meet with President Trump. Tillerson favored accepting the invitation quickly. Trump didn’t.

The president had been talking privately for months about a one-on-one session with Kim, a former administration official said. “North Korea is what he wanted to do.” But the president preferred to wait and make preparations, while not engaging the State Department and White House staffs.

He secretly assigned Mike Pompeo, then CIA director, to handle the response to North Korea. It led to three results: Tillerson’s ouster, Pompeo’s elevation to secretary of state, and Trump’s historic meeting in Singapore last week with Kim.

The whole affair also shed light on the president’s style after 17 months in office. The first event with Kim in Singapore was a face-to-face meeting with interpreters in the room but no staff. “It was parallel to Reagan when he met Mikhail Gorbachev at a lake house in Geneva” in 1985, says Trump’s friend Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker.

That setting was conducive to friendly dialogue. So the Reagan-Gorby chit-chat was deemed a success. Trump wanted something like that to emerge between him and Kim and it came close to happening. Now he’s bent on working again outside the smothering formalities of establishment Washington. That’s establishment, NeverTrump D.C.—enemy territory.

Some things have changed. His learning curve has picked up. He’s on the verge of becoming a foreign policy president. But he’s still an outsider, which means he doesn’t fit the White House mold and is stuck inside a system that limits his political creativity. His staff isn’t much help. They’re Republicans, after all.

But think for a moment about the end run with Pompeo, leaving Tillerson and the foreign service slugs in the dark. It was inspired. He assigned one of the few people in Washington he trusts to line up things for the lovefest with Kim. The Trump-haters were stunned.


Remember how efficiently Trump got rid of the Paris climate accord, one of many decisions other presidents would have been afraid to make? The president recruited Scott Pruitt, the EPA administrator, who knows the downside of the treaty by heart. When Trump announced his decision to pull out, he was persuasive. A press secretary couldn’t have handled this job as well.

Another risky act only Trump was brave enough to commit was moving the U.S. embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. He wisely did it on short notice. The Palestinians exploded, but got over it quickly.

Whoever introduced Trump to tweeting—perhaps it was his own doing—was a genius. As a method of communication, it fits Trump’s personality. I can’t prove it, but I believe his saber-rattling tweets must have pushed Kim toward the tête-à-tête with Trump.

“Trump is primarily not staffed,” Gingrich says. The New York Times is horrified. He likes to begin every visit with a foreign leader with a personal meeting, just two leaders swapping tales. That, rather than relying on White House aides or Washington “experts,” is where he develops what Gingrich calls “his higher quality of knowledge.”

Had the State Department been running the show, the meeting with Kim would likely have been a formal diplomatic production. Trump would have had less chance of stirring any rapport with Kim than Elizabeth Warren does of convincing Cherokees she’s one of them.

Meanwhile, Trump has learned from the real experts how to function in the world. Before the Kim meeting, Trump conferred at the White House with South Korean president Moon Jae-in in May and Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe last week. His last meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping was in November 2017. After Xi met with Kim in May, he sent a message to Trump that Kim was looking forward to getting together with the president in Singapore.

Lots of presidents have complained about being tied down by the White House system and try to break outside it. That causes leakers to step up to the challenge. In Trump’s case they’ve unloaded their worries to the New York Times. “Rather than trusting the people around him, Mr. Trump has taken to working the phones more aggressively to seek counsel from outside voices,” the Times reported two days before Trump met with Kim.

Trump “now dictates to aides what he would like to see happen, as opposed to seeking a range of views, as predecessors may have done, people close to him say,” according to the Times.

Telling his underlings what to do is hardly worrisome. But Washington is a liberal town and the media rush to defend the status quo when it’s threatened by an interloper. When outsiders intervene, their influence declines. It’s a binary proposition. On this front, Trump has made the right choice.

Link

quote:

Originally posted by ilikefirearms:
I’m not gonna pretend I support or respect him.

Who the fuck asked you to?

I just had a chance to watch that interview...that was awesome

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by ilikefirearms:
I’m not gonna pretend I support or respect him.

Who the fuck asked you to?

Thanks for a great forum over the 14 years. Learned a lot on a ton of topics. I’ll move on. Best to you and yours.

I don’t understand this brand of stupid but I admire your dedication to it dude.

BTW Trump absolutely lied to us all. I’m still not tired of the winning.

You did it to yourself. No one asked you to pledge allegiance to Donald Trump. You threw your tantrum last night and I thought you got the message to cool it when I showed up, but you just had to show your true colors, so, leave if you want to leave. Just as long as I don't have to listen to your bitching about the man who stopped Hillary Clinton from taking power.

Your choice

Your mouth

Your doing

All you

I tried to make light of your behavior last night and I thought you'd figure it out, but you just had to keep at it.

Boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen, I'll say it once again: This is Trump country. If you don't like that, no one is forcing you to be here.

On the up side, we won't have to hear the lamentations of that particular woman anymore.

His CUT should be "the truth pisses me off"

He still has posting rights. He's not being banned. He's choosing to leave. If ever he comes to his senses and realizes that no one here wants to hear him bitch about the one man in Washington who is actually doing something for the people of this nation, then he is welcome back.

Trump may have a couple of rough edges, but we couldn't have been delivered a better man for the job that most of us agree needed to be done. It's as if he was delivered by the cosmos, or whoever is in charge of divine job placement. Dare I say that he's on track to top Reagan's conservative record, and that's saying A LOT!

I'm sure he's surprising many people even on the right with his accomplishments. Moving at "Trump speed" has become a oft repeated statement. I'm sure his record thus far has absolutely eclipsed what anyone else on either ticket would have accomplished. Substance over style in spades, so thankfully. Think what he could do if he had more support!

quote:

Originally posted by ilikefirearms:

Thanks for a great forum over the 14 years. Learned a lot on a ton of topics. I’ll move on. Best to you and yours.

Plenty of room over at moveon.org. I'm sure they will welcome you with open arms.

It really floors me how people just lose their mind over Donald Trump and just have to let the world know about it.

I don't care whether others like the man or not. I can see what he's doing for this nation. I can see the truth. I just don't want to listen to the incessant whining and bitching. I've had a belly full of it and I will not tolerate it in this forum.

President Donald Trump strongly affirmed on a surprise Friday morning Fox News appearance he would “certainly” not sign a “more moderate” Republican immigration bill that Speaker Paul Ryan is pushing in Congress.

“I’m looking at both of them,” President Trump said speaking of two Republican immigration bills jockeying for support in Congress. Those two bills are Rep. Bob Goodlatte’s immigration bill and Speaker Ryan’s bill. He affirmed “certainly” that he “wouldn’t sign the more moderate one.” The “more moderate” bill of the two is Ryan’s bill.

“I need a bill that gives this country tremendous border security,” Trump told Fox. He added that it has to end catch and release, end the visa lottery, and “we have to have the wall, if we don’t have the wall there’s no bill.”

Trump also touched on the very low number of immigration court appearances by those who are given notices to appear.

“We’re getting MS-13 out by the thousands, but we shouldn’t have to be going in to towns in Long Island and other places and getting them out. You know it’s almost like we’re liberating towns, it’s incredible,” said Trump who lauded the job that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doing.

President Trump also lauded the new Italian Prime Minister’s “very strong” position on immigration and hit the Democrats for having a weak position on immigration. He said the Democrats are responsible for separation of families under current immigration law. “We’re willing to change it today if they want to get in and negotiate, but they just don’t want to negotiate,” said Trump who accused the Democrats of not wanting security for the country.

The Ryan bill was formally filed on Thursday. When White House press secretary Sarah Sanders was asked during Thursday afternoon’s press conference whether the president had a preference between the two bills, she sidestepped the opportunity to endorse either and instead repeatedly referred back to a four pillar immigration proposal President Trump laid out in January.

Analysis of the discussion draft of Ryan’s bill has shown that it does not meet those four pillars. White House press staff refused to comment late Thursday afternoon on whether or not the president would stand by the four pillars he has set and oppose Ryan’s bill if it fails to meet those four pillars.

Shortly after President Trump declared his opposition to Ryan’s bill, a Republican leader told the Associated Press that the House would not “take on” immigration bill without the president’s support:


http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...an-immigration-bill/

Here's the President responding to a presstitute's question about NK:




Link to original video: https://youtu.be/jtAZn1fKafA

Re: “Trump may have a couple of rough edges”. Indeed – he’s not a professional politician. I thank the Lord for him.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Re: “Trump may have a couple of rough edges”. Indeed – he’s not a professional politician. I thank the Lord for him.

Amen. General Patton had rough edges. And God put him in the right place, at the right time, to use those rough edges to the advantage of the United States.

I like rough edges.

And Patton did not use much decorum with the press...he pretty much didn't give a fuck...much to the chigrin of the politicians back home...but you know what, we are free today because of men like him...

MAGA!

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Re: “Trump may have a couple of rough edges”. Indeed – he’s not a professional politician. I thank the Lord for him.

An epiphany for me nearly 20 years ago when our then-sheriff was being recalled was that everyone claims to hate politicians—until they stop acting like politicians. Then they hate them even more. “Everyone” is of course an exaggeration, but it’s largely true. A recent example was the President’s returning a military salute. A politician would have nuanced such encounters to the nanometer; our leader did what he wanted to without worrying about inconsequential minutia.

And on that point, the remarkable thing about it was that it occurred at all. Anyone who is the least familiar with how the North Koreans have dealt with any and all negotiations for the past 65 years should be astonished by the thought of a NK general initiating a salute of a US President. Whether he was told to do it or it was a spontaneous act (that hopefully he won’t suffer for), it’s incredible and to me says more than any formal announcement by the two countries.

quote:

Originally posted by lkdr1989:
Here's the President responding to a presstitute's question about NK:

... snortle; presstitute. stolen.

A personal reflection, one that likely has occurred to others ...

President Trump puts the needs of this nation, ahead of any of his own (as if he has any right now) ... or that of the party.

In a Happy Place this weekend.