Russia's state television service this week mocked President Donald Trump for harming relationships with his own country's allies while completely failing to come away with an agreement to denuclearize North Korea.
As Julia Davis reports in The Daily Beast, Russian state TV show host Dmitry Kiselyov this week listed all of the president's foreign policy missteps and ridiculed him for painting himself as a top deal maker who could convince North Korea to abandon its arsenal of nuclear weapons.
"Trump miraculously managed to worsen relations on all fronts: with the European Union, China, Russia," he said. "Total failure in Syria. The same with Turkey. Failure with Iran and failure with Venezuela. Nothing but failures at every turn... Trump, who calls himself the ‘master of the deal,’ left Vietnam empty-handed."
Konstantin Asmolov, an expert from the Center for Korean Studies, similarly mocked Trump and said that many foreign leaders could be wary of cutting a deal with someone whom they believe will be voted out of power in less than two years.
"If Kim conceded anything [to Trump], then Trump’s successor might say that everything that this clown [Trump] has signed was not in our national interests and then Kim would end up in Gaddafi’s position," he explained.
Russian state TV host Olga Skabeeva, meanwhile, said that she was encouraged that North Korea had refused to dismantle its nuclear program.
"We trust in Kim and hope he won’t abandon anything," she said.