Speaking to reporters around 4am Tuesday New York time after meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, a sleepless President Trump said he trusted that Kim would follow through on the agreement he signed to denuclearize (which was a weaker version of agreements Kim had already signed). But if he didn’t, no big.
“Honestly, I think he’s going to do these things. I may be wrong,” said Trump. “I may stand before you in six months and say, ‘Hey, I was wrong.’ I don’t know that I’ll admit that but I’ll find some kind of an excuse.”
Although it’s well documented that Trump has an allergy to accountability, this is the first time the president has so clearly articulated his MO: Faced with error or negative results, just make something up.
In a rare moment of honesty, after 25 hours with no sleep, Trump admits if the agreement FAILS, he’ll just LIE about it:
“I may stand before you in 6 months and say I was wrong…I don’t know if I’ll ever admit that. I’ll find some kind of an excuse.” pic.twitter.com/59VM4jNEG0
— Mikel Jollett (@Mikel_Jollett) June 12, 2018
Trump, who said he hadn’t slept in 25 hours, was speaking to reporters in Singapore, where he had just undertaken a short one-on-one meeting with Kim, a second short meeting joined by aides from both sides, a working lunch, and a document signing, the contents of which were not released to allies, Congress or the press ahead of time.
The document commits the United States to providing security measures if nuclear weapons are eliminated from the Korean peninsula. But analysts pointed out that North Korea had agreed to denuclearize several times before, only to continue weapons testing and social-media saber-rattling. No timeline was specified in the document, nor were the security measures. Trump said Kim would begin to denuclearize “virtually immediately,” but that wasn’t defined either.
Trump said that he and Kim had developed a “special bond” during the Singapore summit, in which the two leaders engaged in less than two hours of meeting time overall, half of which was taken up by interpreters. He also called the dictator, who has starved his own people and killed members of his own family, “funny,” “smart” and talented.”
