(The Week)
American reporters wondered what the U.S. got out of Trump legitimizing and praising an oppressive rogue nuclear regime that is still openly testing ballistic missies. "Why does Kim Jong Un deserve this moment?"
Bloomberg News' Margaret Talev asked Trump at a press conference before the meeting. Trump complained that "only the fake news" says he hasn't made tremendous strides toward fixing the North Korea problem. Trump's visit to the DMZ and steps into North Korea were played extensively on cable news, and the news coverage often sounded like political theater review.
In 2017, Trump "secretly planned to walk right up to the North Korean border to show Kim Jong Un that America would stand up to his brutal regime," and "in 2019, Trump publicly implored Kim to meet him at that same border in order to smile, shake hands, and discuss the future the two countries could bring about together," says Politico's Anita Kumar. Read more