The last 12 to 24 hours have brought some pretty fantastic news, frankly, and on two fronts. First, out of the Koreas, North and South.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has agreed to suspend nuclear and missile tests while engaged in negotiations with South Korea, Seoul's government announced Tuesday morning. According to the office of South Korean president Moon Jae-in, Kim has agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit on the border between the two Koreas in late April, the first of its kind since 2007.
South Korea also said that Kim expressed willingness to begin talks with the United States about "denuclearization and normalizing relations"; President Trump has said that North Korea must be willing to denuclearize before negotiations begin.
"The North Korean side clearly stated its willingness to denuclearize," Moon's office said. "It made clear that it would have no reason to keep nuclear weapons if the military threat to the North was eliminated and its security guaranteed."
Now we just need our President to not exacerbate the situation with any tweeting or comments. Good luck to us all and God help us on that. It's starting to look like, of the two, our President Trump and their Kim Jong Un, Mr. Un is the sane one. Let's hope they both are.
Then there is this, regarding the Russia investigation of this President and his White House.
Former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg spent much of Monday on a media tour, granting interviews to CNN, MSNBC, NY1, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and other outlets as he declared his intention to ignore a subpoena from special counsel Robert Mueller.
The subpoena, which Nunberg supplied to multiple outlets and then held in his hand as he appeared on television, demanded he turn over all documents he had from November 1, 2015 to the present that related to President Trump and former Trump campaign officials Carter Page, Corey Lewandowski, Hope Hicks, Keith Schiller, Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Roger Stone, and Steve Bannon.
In his multiple interviews, Nunberg said that it would take too much time to sort through that "ridiculous amount of documents," and that he would ignore the subpoena's demands and an order by Mueller to appear before a grand jury on Friday.
"Screw that," he said on CNN. "Why do I have to go? Why? For what?" Nunberg essentially dared Mueller to hold him in contempt of court and jail him. "Let him arrest me," Nunberg told the Washington Post.
But by Monday night, the ex-Trump aide had begun to change his tune. Nunberg told the Associated Press that he is "going to end up cooperating" with the special counsel, although he would like Mueller's team to narrow the subpoena's scope of inquiry. After a day of publicly proclaiming his intent to defy Mueller, Nunberg appeared to back away from his plan to fight.
Here are just a few of the quotes from Mr. Nunberg yesterday:
- "Trump may well have done something during the election with the Russians."
- "You know [Trump] knew about [his son's Trump Tower meeting with a Russian lawyer]. He was talking about it a week before. ... I don't know why he went around trying to hide it."
- "I was told that [Russian pop star Emin Alagarov] had offered to send women up to Trump's room [while he was in Moscow] but Trump didn't want it. He's too smart for that."
- "I believe [former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser] Carter Page was colluding with the Russians. ... Carter Page is a weird dude."
Cochran to resign from Senate next month
Another Republican, Senator Thad Cochran, is to resign from Congress. Unfortunately, it's because of poor health which I would wish on no one but hey, at least another Republican will be out of office. That's the upside to an otherwise unfortunate situation.
Incredible. An incredible--and good--day.
Maybe great, even. Here's hoping it continues.
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