CNN’s Alayna Treene: Trump’s Decision of Scaling Back Military Drills with South Korea Is ‘Something We Have Seen in the Past’

RUSH EXCERPT:

TREENE: “Yeah, well, I think it was. And to your point, a great question from our colleague Kristen Holmes, who I should just point out is an incredible reporter pressing the president on this idea. Did you speak with Kim Jong UN directly about this? Well, another reporter interjected later on and said, asked him about correspondence he had with Kim Jong UN. Specifically if the North Korean leader had responded to any communication. And the president said, yeah, he has. Now, one thing I want to reference here is that as you played in that clip, the president, at least back during his first term, used to exchange letters with the North Korean leader. We had reported our colleague Kylie Atwood and I actually, back in the fall, that the president had been continuing to send correspondence to Kim Jong UN, asking to continue talking about a potential meeting around the president‘s October trip last year to Asia. We reported at the time that there had been no response from the north Koreans. So I think that‘s where this question centered on. But the president argued, yes, he has responded, didn‘t get into the substance of it, which I think gets right back to kristen‘s question is, did you talk about the scaling back of exercises with the North Korean leader, especially given, of course, all of the geopolitical impacts of that decision? One thing I want to mention here as well, Anderson, is this isn‘t something that we haven‘t seen before with the president. I would remind you that a couple months ago, when the president had at first once offered potential, the potential of having patriot missiles be sent to Ukraine during that war. Well, then he spoke to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and later pulled back from that statement. So this is something we have seen in the past.”