i think he could use a new chief of staff. but so far i think trump is willing to muddle through i'm not sure that he has anybody else in mind and not easy to find another jim baker or leon panetta to step into that role someone you'd recommend. i can't give you a name larry because it's as i say those guys are few and far between so it's hard to imagine but i think that he needs to find somebody as i've said before who is grounded who's comfortable in his own skin who's been around the block and who can tell him hard truths and that's that's a tall order chris with blows great talking with you thanks for your time today great to be on with you larry while the president from been his team face many questions at home whether he gave away too much in return for way too little at the singapore summit north korea's state media touting kim jong un success in his

dealings with america who's the real winner and loser and what happens next with north korea's nuclear arsenal few people know the so-called hermit kingdom better than our next guest old friend compatriot michael general oyo senior fellow at the u.s. china institute at the university is something california former c.n.n. senior asia correspondent and the author of a meltdown the inside story of the north korean nuclear crisis mike has visited north korea seventeen times and d.d.b. on the air with us at c.n.n. i'd be in washington or l.a. and mike would be in north korea those were great days weren't they mike yeah long time ago but there are three issue hasn't gone away when was the last time you were there i was there about forty five years ago all right what's your assessment of what happened in singapore. i think north korean leader kim jong un had

a very good summit he got a lot and gave away very little the north koreans have been looking for decades for their leader to get an equal base to face meeting with president of the united states. nor kim jong un's father kim jong il wanted that and didn't get it and his grandfather kim il sung whom i met three times when i was working for c.n.n. wanted in didn't get it so this is huge for north korea it gives kim jong un face legitimacy equal stature the president of the united states and he got rolled that without actually taking any serious concrete steps to give up his nuclear arsenal so i'd say he's the big winner and enormous questions remain now about whether the north koreans are going to do anything in return for what they got from president drop but on wednesday the president tweeted there is no longer a nuclear threat from north korea well i personally think that's absolutely not

true the north korean still have a significant new nuclear arsenal they are still producing fissile material of weapons grade plutonium and uranium they still have short range medium range and long range missiles to the extent that the u.s. and north korea are being friendly or the odds of north korea using that against the united states go down but the reality is they have will that if the american goal has been to try to get rid of it we're in concrete terms not any closer. what do you make of freezing the regular military exercises how long saw the republic of korea foursomes and that's viewed as a major concession to north korea how they're going to read that in south korea. i think the south koreans are very perplexed by this because president truong made that announcement apparently without consulting the south korean government or as far as i can tell without consulting his own secretary of defense the dynamic in

this summit frankly as someone who's followed the korea issue for a long time was really strange because the drug administration went into the summit saying they were looking for north korea to agree to c.v. id complete verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear program and of course last year president jiang threatened to go to war if the north didn't take steps in that direction but the statement that they came out with was very bland the north koreans agreed to less robust steps than they had agreed in earlier agreements with the united states and then president trump unilaterally offered this concession which the north koreans have been angling for for years and as far as i can tell so far he hasn't gotten anything in return ok what is the i'm beggin you of the specialists on this on china and all of us. i think the chinese have to

be absolutely thrilled with what's going on first of all they don't want to see conflict on the korean peninsula and i do think in fairness to president truong for all the questions about where this process is going to go it's far better that the discussion be about how the u.s. and north korea can get along than about whether the u.s. and north korea are going to go to war so the chinese are pleased that the level of tension is has been reduced but also when the american president says it's going to scale back us up korean joint military exercises and suggested that he could put on the table for future negotiation the whole presence in south korea of american military forces the chinese have been dying to see a reduction in the u.s. military presence in northeast asia because that simply weakens the american strategic position in the far east and the result is that china is strengthened so i think beijing has to be thrilled is there any risk that kim jong un could

lose his leadership on a do you have any idea if there are factions in north korea against him. people have been trying to figure out the internal dynamics in the north korea for a long time and there's been endless amounts of speculation my own sense is that kim jong un although he was quite young when he took power after his father died in two thousand and eleven has proved himself to be a pretty ruthless operator he had his uncle executed he had his half brother executed he's had lots of other people either executed or removed from power so i think his position is quite strong and what he's gained domestically from this summit if you look at the way the north korean press has played the meeting i think boosts him immeasurably i think one of the most intriguing questions now is whether or not with a significant shift in the whole tenor of relations with the united states is kim

jong un going to show that he really is serious not only about reducing north korea's nuclear arsenal but about trying to implement some change in north korea he's he's talked about wanting more foreign investment there are more elements of the market economy he certainly in his own behavior tried to be come more normal international figure meeting foreign leaders. less like the hermit kingdom we've seen so that's going to be a really intriguing question we don't know the answer but it's not impossible that he could turn out to be an important figure for change he's got to run that country for that he's only an early thirty's he could live fifty more years and i don't know that he wants his legacy to be an impoverished. train wreck of a country when he might be able to turn it into a more prosperous place as we've seen in many other countries in asia like south korea japan hong kong taiwan singapore my guess and when london was in reaction there until somebody. well i think the general reaction in the west is

astonishment that it happened. a certain degree of relief that the u.s. and north korea have moved away from war but enormous skepticism about where this goes if you look at the british media coverage or international media coverage as well as an american media coverage and the comments and almost every serious north korea watcher the sense is that kim jong un got a lot and president trump didn't get much the question now is whether this opens the door for something significant to happen in the future you know the north koreans have always said they said this to me and my visits there their ultimate goal was a fundamental change in the political relationship between north korea and the united states an end to years of enmity and hostility and for north korea at that so he's been the precondition to do anything on the issues that the u.s.

cared about like nukes and missiles so if they're getting that the question is will they now take some serious steps as the administration keeps saying insisting they believe north korea will or will a north koreans do what they've often done in the past because pocket concessions and put their hand out and ask for more with while giving very little that's a big question mark mike the president on wednesday put out this tweet so funny to watch the fake news especially n.b.c. and c.n.n. they're fighting hard to downplay the deal with north korea five hundred days ago they would have begged for this deal when it looked like war was going to break out on country's biggest enemy is the fake news so easily promulgated by fools. you were to be one of those networks so did i what do you make of that tweet i think it's very frightening that the president of united states should meet with a dictator of one of the world's most repressive countries with one of its most

appalling human rights records and a nuclear arsenal and a long track record of issuing explicit threats to nuke the united states and come out of that meeting and say that the media is the biggest threat to the united states is frightening i think it's reflective of all the things that make donald trump in my view such a dangerous figure the basic values of democracy like a free press don't seem to count with him and it's interesting that he seems more comfortable with a dictator like kim jong un then with a stencil allies like the prime minister of canada or the prime minister of germany . mike great talking to you hope to see again soon thanks for being with us ok take care mike chinoy senior fellow at the u.s. china institute at the university of southern california thanks you for joining me on this edition of politicking member you can join the conversation on my facebook page or tweet me at kings things and don't forget to use the politicking hash tag

and that's all for this edition of politicking.

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