If you cave to the NRA, what will you do with North Korea?
Mar 13, 2018, 6:46 AM | Updated: 10:18 am
(File, Associated Press)
In a couple of months, President Donald Trump will sit across from North Korean Dictator Kim Jong Un to push for de-nuking the North Korea.
Is there a less dangerous way Russia’s leader can prove his manhood?
I was talking with a former state department official who said one of the reasons Kim was eager to talk was Trump’s threat of military action.
“Which this president makes credible in a way that a lot of us find irrational. But it does create a genuine fear in North Korea,” said Tom Countryman, a veteran nuclear negotiator.
Countryman acknowledged that the threat of “fire and fury” probably worked.
So far so good. But Kim obviously watches this president very closely. And what has he seen lately? A president who two weeks ago was ready to take on the NRA, but who now has retreated so completely that reporters during Monday’s briefing seemed to be questioning whether he has a spine.
“You talked about supporting universal background checks. About taking guns away from those identified as a threat. What happened to all those proposals?” one reporter asked.
Which raises another question: if you cave to the NRA that quickly, what are you going to do when you’re across the table from a guy with nukes?