Makes sense. It’s the only show more hostile to Trump than North Korea’s own propaganda is.

The funniest thing about this report is that “Morning Joe” is, relatively speaking, a hard show for most *Americans* to understand, let alone North Koreans. It’s the ultimate Beltway insider program, tailored to the tastes of political junkies. Imagine being an average guy or gal channel-surfing for some general interest news in the morning and stumbling upon an MJ colloquy between Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, and Donny Deutsch on the “dog whistles” in Trump’s latest speech on tax reform. Imagine trying to make sense of that. Now imagine a North Korean military officer, separated by geography, language, and a lot of culture, trying to make sense of it.

I take it back. The funniest thing about this is that the entire crew seems to take the report at face value instead of recognizing that the North Korea officer was just blowing smoke up the NBC correspondent’s ass about what his favorite American news shows are.

NBC News correspondent Kier Simmons landed a rare interview with a North Korean military official on Thursday and learned that officials in the communist country watch “Morning Joe” specifically for reports and discussions about their country… “He quite plainly said he believes President Trump is mentally ill,” Simmons told “Morning Joe” co-hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. “And he was unequivocal in saying he believes North Korea could win a war with America.” “Be it no doubt that the senior officials here pay attention to what is being said in the U.S.,” Simmons added. “One telling me that he watches ‘Morning Joe’ every day specifically for the segments about North Korea.”

Everyone knows that the place to be for in-depth coverage of the crisis on the peninsula isn’t BBC World News, it’s “Morning Joe.” What?

Actually, though, I can kinda sorta see why North Koreans might be monitoring the program. It’s not for the North Korea coverage, of course, it’s because their intelligence people probably know that Scarborough and Brzezinski know Trump personally and therefore might have special insights into his thinking. The NorKs are, reportedly, confused about Trump’s intentions and eager for experts in Washington to clue them into whether Trump’s a blowhard or he really is planning a nuclear first strike. Watching “Morning Joe” would be of a piece with that. And hey, everyone enjoys political television that confirms their own intellectual biases. The NorKs think Trump is crazy and evil; Scarborough and Brzezinski call him crazy and evil pretty much every day. Someday, when the definitive historical account of the U.S./North Korean nuclear exchange of 2019 is written, we may learn that it was an especially febrile, white-knuckled attack on Trump’s mental stability on MSNBC one morning that convinced Kim Jong Un to order full release.

A frightening thought: If the NorKs are monitoring “Morning Joe” because the hosts know Trump, they’re probably monitoring “Hannity” too. They must be on the edge of their seats wondering if the Seth Rich case will ever be cracked.