Donald J. Trump needs to get over himself.
Well, I am aware that he won’t, but I thought I’d say it anyway.
The president has returned to the White House and has declared categorically, without equivocation, that the United States no longer faces a “nuclear threat” from North Korea.
Whoa! Let’s hold on here. Trump and North Korean killer/dictator/despot Kim Jong Un met in Singapore earlier this week. They signed a vague agreement to begin to talk about “denuclearization,” and now the president says the threat from the North is over? It’s gone? Finished? We can live in peace and harmony?
Pardon my skepticism, but I believe the president has gotten way ahead of his own dog-and-pony show.
I agree with many observers that Trump gave away far more than he got from Kim during their meeting in Singapore. The president ended joint military exercises — aka “war games” — with South Korea, which is precisely what Kim had demanded. The two leaders apparently said next to nothing about human rights atrocities that occur daily in North Korea. Then Kim said Trump promised to end economic sanctions against North Korea.
The two met with virtually no preconditions. Remember how Republicans — and, yes, Democrats — excoriated Barack Obama for suggesting he might do that? Now it’s OK. No sweat.
The president hasn’t removed any threat of nuclear war with North Korea, despite his boasting and bellowing.
He won’t control his impulse for self-aggrandizement. It falls on the many of his constituents to seek to lend some perspective to all the bellicosity.