Sen. Lindsey Graham’s response to Donald Trump handing North Korea's Kim Jong-Un a diplomatic victory starts with typical Graham yearning for war while pretending to be an adult stuff before going to a very odd place.
“After numerous discussions with President Trump, I firmly believe his strong stand against North Korea and its nuclear aggression gives us the best hope in decades to resolve this threat peacefully.
“I am not naive. I understand that if the past is an indication of the future, North Korea will be all talk and no action. However, I do believe that North Korea now believes President Trump will use military force if he has to.”
Reality, as Mark Sumner writes, is that Trump has accepted a meeting with Kim with none of the preconditions past U.S. presidents would have insisted on, and that this meeting “completes not just the normalization of North Korea, but the elevation of the rogue state to major player on the world stage.” But of course Graham had to pretend Trump was doing something magnificent and historic and demonstrating great strength. He’s a Republican. Pretending Donald Trump is competent is what they do. Here’s where it gets weird, though:
“A word of warning to North Korean President Kim Jong Un — the worst possible thing you can do is meet with President Trump in person and try to play him. If you do that, it will be the end of you — and your regime.”
It seems like what he’s going for is more posturing combined with some serious sucking up to Trump: “You’re the man, Donald! The man! You could end them!” But I have to ask. Lindsey, are you speaking from experience here? Like “Kim, dude, I tried to play Trump this one time and It Did Not Go Well.” Or is this intended as an audition for ultimately replacing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson? No matter which side this falls on—macho posturing, rueful submissiveness or ambitious positioning—this is a very weird note for a United States senator to strike in a statement on a major international diplomatic issue. Then again, the times are weird and the Republicans are trying hard to keep up.