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Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin

(108,509 posts) Tue Jun 12, 2018, 08:13 PM Jun 2018

Republicans Are Straining Themselves to Praise Trump's North Korea Meeting

Donald Trump cozying up to one of the world’s most ruthless dictators is a tough one to swallow for Republicans. Most conservative lawmakers condemned President Obama's willingness to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, which would seem – if one were being generous – as somewhat analogous to Trump's decision to sit down with Kim Jong-un. But many of these same lawmakers have also hitched their political future to the Trump Train, making it difficult to praise the president for legitimizing the North Korean dictator without coming off as hypocritical. This doesn't mean they didn't try.

The hottest post-summit take came from Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, who told Hugh Hewitt Tuesday morning that Kim Jong-un warranted the respect of the United States because North Korea already has a nuclear arsenal.

Link to tweet

According to Cotton, if a nation has nuclear weapons, it is therefore legitimized in the eyes of the United States, which essentially incentivizes nuclear proliferation. Iran better get to work enriching that uranium if it wants to work out a deal to have American economic sanctions lifted.

Outside of criticizing Trump, Cotton had no other choice than to attempt such daring mental gymnastics. When President Obama was negotiating the Iran deal in 2015, Cotton penned a letter to Iran's leaders warning them that if they were to strike a deal with the United States, Congress or a future president could easily reverse it. The letter was signed by 46 Republican senators, including Marco Rubio who also defended the president's sit down with Kim.

Link to tweet

Here we see Rubio tweeting about how Trump is moving toward peace with North Korea, and then seven minutes later writing that he doesn't believe North Korea would do away with its nuclear arsenal unless if felt the United States was about to blow the entire nation into oblivion. If this is the case, "peace" is impossible and the president's meeting with Kim was pointless, as was his decision to put an end to America's joint military exercises with South Korea in exchange for vague assurances that North Korea would seek to denuclearize. As the New York Times points out, North Korea doing so would be far more difficult than it was for Iran, or any other nation with nuclear capabilities.