MSNBC's Joe Scarborough ripped President Donald Trump's big promises on North Korean diplomacy, now that those efforts appear to have blown up in his face.
The "Morning Joe" host tackled the latest flare-up in U.S. relations with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who issued a threat this week that appears to show Trump's charm offensive has failed.
"Defense Department and State Department aides were watching that closely the last couple days," said Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire, "and the unraveling with North Korea. The president has bet big on that, he's met with Chairman Kim three times. He went to the DMZ and stepped over into North Korea believing an effort to get North Korea to give up their weapons to land him a Nobel Peace prize, and instead we're seeing that North Korea's returned to their tough talk and threatening to deliver a gift in some way to the U.S."
" Trump said it might be a vase," he added. "We tend to doubt that, and I think it goes to show you how tense things have gotten again."
Scarborough agreed that Trump's failure was entirely predictable, despite his big promises.
"Many other experts ... from the very beginning have said that the United States, Donald Trump, would never get denuclearization from Kim or the North Korean people," Scarborough said, "and the president sent out the tweets after the initial meeting, saying you never have to worry about nuclear weapons or missiles again."
"He's, for some strange reason, continued to talk about love letters between Kim and himself," Scarborough added, "and he's continued to assure Americans that this one was taken care of, this one was in the bag, check this one off your to-do list of worrying about North Korea."
Those promises have fallen apart, Scarborough said, and now the president finds himself back at square one.
"Well, obviously that's not the case," he said. "It's not true, it was never true. What's the president's strategy going forward as it becomes more evident daily that North Korea's not going to get the economic relief they want and Donald Trump's not going to get the denuclearization that he guaranteed."
Lemire agreed, saying the president had actually made the situation worse for himself by making big promises instead of managing expectations.
"This has never been a situation where the president has tried to manage expectations," Lemire said. "He has talked big from the beginning, believing that the sort of personal rapport, this chemistry he says that he's delivered with Chairman Kim, could lead North Korea to give up these weapons, which so many foreign policies experts say they never will because the regime views them as essential to their survival."
"They continue to have this weapon and the capability to create them and potentially deliver them is the only thing that prevents other nations from not invading and imposing that regime from power," he added. "But the president hasn't seemed to grasp that, at least not publicly."
