Page 357 - Predecessors News Today

Bush in 2002 joining me now is michael green. nbcs chief global correspondent bill neely whos here in singapore. first to you michael green, i that a fair comparison, that this president at least got to meet with a north korean leader, unlike his predecessors? >> bill clinton and george w. bush could easily have met with the leader of north korea. kim jong-il at the end of the clinton administration came close to getting bill clinton to pyongyang and president clinton i think wisely pulled back ...

Report or se persona relationships with president kim. what you can say is this, is it theater? yes. at least weked back from the edge of armageddon and we started an exercise which overtime will allow us to build trust and denuclearize. at the end o f the day, this is not about anything else. it is not about theaters or exercises. it is about nuclear we mkeep tha mind. >> do you think somebody involved in this in the 90s. have president trump gotten further than any of his predecessors? >> from...

Bombed out of the opening ceremonies. they werent exactly selling tickets and as soon as the chairman, chairman kim said lets participate in the ol, it sold like wildfire an great success as an olympics. he did a great thing but since that time, pretty much since that time -- because as you know a delegation came from south korea, they came to the white house, they told me lots of things including that theyd be willing to denuke and once that started we have been really talking about that fro th...

Document that by some accounts is not nearly strong the six-party talks were? >> im not surprised. certainly weve worried weeks wheth preparations have been done. it was unclear whether secretary pompeo or then cia director pompeo went to north korea whether there was any real commitment with th north koreans. he certainly came back with those three american prisoners and that was very good but it spoke to the fact that hes not had a chance to work on a joint communique. so this thing reflects s...

Or the iranian nuclear deal or even the g-7, which the united states effectively started back in the 1970s. so whether it is -- what his immediate predecessor has done that he wants to reverse or the long-standing norms of the liberal order and post world war world, this president seems to want to walk away and start his own institutions. he generally thinks these international institutions have been bad for the united states and helped europe and china and other trading rivals that he sees and ...

That he treated justin trudeau over the weekend and whether you are talking about north korea or the iran nuclear deal or the paris climate accord, all of the decisions have been governed by the idea he is projecting toughness where his predecessors have failed but what hes doing is dramatically reshaping americas standing on the global stage and our relationship with key allies. >> and he said talk to north korea and see what happens an dont wait five years on germany and france and theyve been...

To be careful about taking photos and yet, that is advice we are hearing from clinton and bush in obama officials who do not get anywhere in this proce process. >> right. the president has certainly made it farther than all of his predecessors right now with this historic coming up tomorrow. i think there are a great deal of concerns because president trump has been known to flout tradition when it comes to the diplomatic opportunities and meetings with foreign leaders and this is certainly no e...

Quite some time. >> michael allen, in fact when we look at the iran nuclear deal it accelerated inside the course of two years when the united states got heavily involved but it was ten years of negotiations to get to that deal that the united states has now stepped away from. but president trump likes to talk about the fact that his predecessors did not do this. when you were working for george w. bush why did presidents of the united states not take the opportunity to meet the leaders of north...

Guarantees were going to be offering are unique and different than what our predecessors have offered. so he was opening the door to something bigger. and i think it all goes to the question of, how much is president trump willing to give in order to get a deal from kim jong-un? nothing that mike pompeo said today persuaded me that president trump isnt willing to give quite a bit. >> but at the same time, ben, you would have a perspective on this, because the president rejected the iran deal pre...

>> i think that kim jong-un has wanted to move toward a summit with an american president pretty much since he took power. he is seen building up a nuclear program as a way of getting enough leverage to move toward the united states. >> president trump immediately agreed to the summit. but its a move that some advisors believed may have been made in haste. >> it was incredibly risky, because it had not been properly analyzed. suddenly, even before they had briefed him properly, he just said, yes...