Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who never saw a camera he didn’t love, ginned up a controversy out of whole cloth immediately after North Korea – U.S. Summit concluded. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo straightened that out in one key statement.

IT’S A NOTHINGBURGER

Chuck’s claim is that the U.S. got nothing in return for big concessions. The concessions included a meeting with the President, U.S. flags next to North Korean flags (a sign of respect), and he gave up joint military exercises on the Peninsula.

Actually, he gave up “some” exercise but only if North Korea acts in good faith. There are some scheduled for the Fall and some for next year. They can easily be brought back. In return, we will get our POW/MIA Korean War dead back and Kim Jong-un promised to denuclearize. It was an amazing first step, and as Lindsey Graham said, Trump did more in getting the leader of North Korea to the table than any leader in the past thirty years.

There is no controversy here. It’s only a “first step” as the President has repeatedly said. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is leading the negotiations which will be long. He came out this morning with a very strong statement in support of the President.

Pompeo said it is very clear that “the U.S. wants North Korea to take major nuclear disarmament steps by the end of Trump’s first term in office. If North Korea does not negotiate in good faith with the United States, we will resume military drills.”

Pompeo was present when the President made his statements and it was unambiguous that North Korea must negotiate in good faith.

It’s a meaningless controversy since the drills can be brought back at any time. It’s not like relieving Kim of sanctions with nothing in return as Obama did. Before any deal, the U.S. gave up millions in sanction relief to Iran and they never even signed a thing.

As far as the meeting and the flags, this President thinks outside the box and nothing came of the more arrogant approach used by other presidents. This President is a risk taker. The left had no problem with Nancy Pelosi or Jimmy Carter going to North Korea making utter fools of themselves. Nor did they mind when Barack Obama held a monster ball or hung with Raoul Castro.