PLEASE STAND BY: I’m going to say something kinda sorta nice about Donald Trump. 1/
I’m seeing a lot of cable chatter about how Trump agreed to a summit with Kim Jong Un to distract from Stormy Daniels. Indeed, @donlemon asked me this last night. And I don’t really buy it. 2/
For one thing, Trump has already announced the tariffs on Thursday. That was plenty distracting, but the summit announcement stepped on that. And on Friday Trump got good job numbers. The summit walk back/non-walk back distracted from that as well. 3/
But let’s grant that none of us can truly know what’s in Donald Trump’s heart. Maybe this is an effort at distraction. But even if that’s true, it’s a surprisingly constructive distraction. 4/
A traditional way that presidents try to distract citizens or change the narrative is to ratchet up a crisis. Call it diversionary war, or the “Wag the Dog” scenario, you get the drift.
It would have been easy for Trump to have gone in that direction with North Korea. Indeed, that has been the fear of many ever since the “fire and fury” comments from last August. 6/
There are many, many ways in which this could still go sideways. Trump is winging it. His consultation with allies is piss-poor. He’s far too confident in his own negotiating prowess. The summit may not even happen. 7/
And I share @VictorDCha’s concerns about what happens if the summit fails. 8/
Still, if Trump feels the need to distract from Stormy Daniels, and his instinct is to go for a summit than militarizing the conflict further, that’s... not an awful instinct? 9/
So yes, I fear many elements of Trump’s foreign policy right now. But the accusation that Trump is trying to distract from scandals with a summit strikes me as untrue. And if it is true, it’s a better, more counterintuitive instinct than expected. #fin
