The Kim con

Trump isn’t trying to impress Kim. He’s trying to impress you. He starts by lowering the bar, claiming that any summit outcome is better than the nuclear holocaust people feared after Trump escalated the war of words with Pyongyang. “You could have lost, you know, 30-, 40-, 50 million people” in a nuclear war, Trump pointed out in the press conference. Then, to pad the tally of gains from the summit, Trump double-counts things North Korea had done beforehand: releasing hostages and suspending missile launches. Trump demands extra credit for not giving North Korea $150 billion, which he falsely claims Obama gave up in the nuclear deal with Iran. (Spoiler: It was Iran’s money.)…

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Trump has spent a lifetime using other people’s celebrity to promote himself and his products. To him, Kim is just another celebrity. That’s why he spoke at the press conference about North Korea as a real estate paradise with beautiful beaches. It’s also why Trump credited Kim with saving, through North Korean participation, this year’s Winter Olympics in South Korea. “They weren’t exactly selling tickets,” said Trump. But once “Chairman Kim said, ‘Let’s participate in the Olympics,’ it sold like wildfire and was a great success.”

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