MSNBC’s Melber: Past Presidents of Both Parties Withheld Presidential Visits Until North Korea Have Improved Its Conduct

RUSH EXCERPT:

MELBER: “Now, what’s the policy here beyond these visuals? “The New York Times” is already reporting the Trump Administration is considering a concession with North Korea that would allow a freeze in all nuclear production, but would keep the status quo. That means the stockpile of missiles stay. The status quo tacitly accepting the north as a nuclear power. That obviously is not the goal of U.S. Policy, which is why Trump’s national security advisor John Bolton is denying those reports. I should mention as an aside he was not brought along to North Korea by the president. So what can we take from all of this from these highlights of an unusual trip? Well, the president is already taking heat for putting pageantry above policy. The presidents in both parties avoided exactly this kind of visit precisely because it does risk giving North Korea something for nothing. Time on their turf literally, the prestige of an American visit, and all the rest. Now, that doesn’t mean that everything that is on the table or that’s even being denied by the administration is completely unprecedented. Team Trump again says there isn’t going to be a surrender for a potential freeze that makes North Korea nuclear armed recognized power, but other administrations have also explored at least, in theory, similar proposals in unsuccessful efforts to find a solution for the north Korean problem.”