Mollie Hemingway is Right and the New York Times is Wrong

JaneKMiller said: It was stupid of the Times to imagine that anything would be "impossible" for Trump. Presumably they meant, "it would be catastrophically reckless if Trump had the summit so therefore they can't do it". Sorta like saying, "you cross onto the train tracks when a train is already going by". Sure you can. Just release the brake and hit the accelerator. Done. Like so many before them, the Times just doesn't get Trump...

Indeed.

I think this issue will be off the table by June 12 as there is no summit. Unless Trump manages to convince Kim Jong-Un to meet in front of the cameras just so he can say they have a "summit".

Here is what the NY Times wrote:

"On Thursday, for example, a senior White House official [Matthew Pottinger] told reporters that even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be IMPOSSIBLE (emphasis added by me), given the lack of time and the amount of planning needed."

Trump's response: 'The Failing @nytimes quotes "a senior White House official", who DOES NOT EXIST, as saying "Even if the meeting were reinstated, holding it on June 12 would be impossible given the lack of time and amount of planning required." WRONG AGAIN! Use real people, not phony sources.'

So now we are bickering about two things --

Trump made one simple binary true/false factual statement which can be easily shown to be false, since Pottinger DOES exist.

The second part is true semantics and opinion. Hemingway opines: 'I imagine the background briefer probably feels a lot of anger at The New York Times for being utterly incompetent at its job'. It is pure speculation what Pottinger himself thinks, though .... certainly I would NOT expect him to honestly say what he thinks regarding the feasibility of useful negotiations by June 12 given the way Trump treats employees perceived to be "disloyal".

Is it "possible" that Trump might hold SOME sort of Mickey Mouse meeting with North Korea in the proverbial Potemkin village on June 12 if he invites e.g Dennis Rodman to discuss basketball with Kim Jong Un while decrying the awful state of the Fake News media? Yes. But serious officials surely believe that there is not enough time to prepare for serious, substantive talks with North Korea on how to resolve the situation with the nuclear weapons. LEAST OF ALL if the chief negotiator is supposed to be Donald J. Trump, who knows jack sh*t about the salient issues!

Let's be honest, conservatives. If your "defense" of president Trump's North Korea foreign policy gets reduced to absurd semantic discussions like Hemingway's above, maybe you should reconsider building your house on a shaky platform that includes Trump as a key part of the foundation? For this won't end well for you in the long run.

It was stupid of the Times to imagine that anything would be "impossible" for Trump. Presumably they meant, "it would be catastrophically reckless if Trump had the summit so therefore they can't do it".

Sorta like saying, "you cross onto the train tracks when a train is already going by". Sure you can. Just release the brake and hit the accelerator. Done.

Like so many before them, the Times just doesn't get Trump...

Erick BACKING something (almost) out of this White House?!? think that's maybe 2-3 x in the last month? Dana had all this on her show today - no one on recording or on transcripts said anything like what Times wanted it to say... PROUD of ya, Erick!