WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump prepares to meet North Korea’s Kim Jong Un for a second time, he’s out to replicate the suspenseful buildup, make-or-break stakes and far-flung rendezvous of their first encounter. The reality star American president will soon learn if the sequel, on this matter and many others, can compete with the original.
In his third year in office, Trump is starting to air some reruns.
Trump is headed into fresh negotiations with North Korea, is still pushing for his long-promised U.S.-Mexico border wall and is considering a new round of tax cuts. The focus on his greatest hits in part reflects Trump’s desire to fulfill campaign promises and energize voters for his 2020 re-election campaign. But it’s not without risks.
“The danger is the public starts recognizing this is Groundhog Day,” said presidential historian Douglas Brinkley. “You keep thinking there is a win and there is no win. It’s not clear Trump is scoring durable history points.”
With his reality TV background and instinctive sense of how to control a news cycle, Trump has long micromanaged the staging of his image, eager to project power and drama.
Those instincts were on full display during the recent scrap over his second State of the Union address. Trump rejected his aides’ suggestions that he deliver the address from an alternate site after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., withdrew her invitation for him speak at the Capitol during the government shutdown. Trump opted to wait for the real deal.
“There is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber,” he tweeted.
In his dealings with North Korea, both past and future, Trump has been intent on ginning up excitement.
After months of trading escalating nuclear threats with the North, Trump memorably popped his head into the White House briefing room last March to hint at big news to come. Not long afterward, officials announced that a Trump-Kim meeting was in the offing.
From there, Trump teased dates and locations, threatened to cancel it — and did so at one point — before signing off on the plan for the historic meeting in Singapore last June.
Trump was delighted that the first summit received round-the-clock cable TV coverage for days, something he had hoped to repeat last summer when he met with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, according to two Republicans close to the White House not authorized to speak publicly about private matters. But Trump saw the Putin coverage take a negative turn after he refused to side with U.S. intelligence agencies over the Russian president in a post-summit news conference.
This time, Trump has again tried to draw out the suspense, teasing the possibility of another meeting with Kim for months and waxing poetic about his relationship with the authoritarian leader. But Trump has glossed over the fact that the first meeting produced little tangible results toward denuclearization, instead stressing that North Korea’s threats have fallen off and suggesting there is an opportunity for further progress.
