'They Want to Know If Trump's Crazy'

Inside the secret back-channel North Korea talks

By SUSAN B. GLASSER November 13, 2017

“They want to know if he’s crazy,” said Suzanne DiMaggio, “or if this is just an act.”

“They” is North Korean officials. And “he” is Donald Trump. Four times over the last year, in Geneva, Pyongyang, Oslo and Moscow, DiMaggio has secretly met with North Koreans to talk about the country’s nuclear program. But what they really want to talk about, DiMaggio said in an extensive new interview for The Global Politico, is America’s volatile president.

The North Koreans have asked her not only if Trump is nuts, DiMaggio said, but what and how to think about everything from his public undercutting of his Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible campaign collusion with Russia.

“They really want to know what is his end game,” said DiMaggio, a scholar at New America who specializes in talking with rogue regimes and has spent nearly two decades in secret discussions with the North Koreans. She believes they were ready after Trump’s surprise election to discuss a new round of official talks with the U.S. to defuse the standoff over their nuclear weapons – but that Trump’s escalating rhetoric and Twitter rants such as his weekend taunting of North Korea’s “short and fat” Kim Jong Un may have foreclosed that option. “They follow the news very closely; they watch CNN 24/7; they read his tweets and other things.”

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https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/13/north-korea-trump-secret-talks-global-politico-215822