Someday, soon I hope, we'll look back on this administration.
When we do, I expect this will come up:
Reporters thought this video was North Korea propaganda. It came from the White House.
But then the video looped, playing this time in English. And then Trump walked onto the stage and confirmed what some had already realized.
The film was not North Korean propaganda. It had been made in America, by or on the orders of his White House, for the benefit of Kim.
“I hope you liked it,” Trump told the reporters. “I thought it was good. I thought it was interesting enough to show. ... And I think he loved it.”
The crowd sounded skeptical. Some wondered if Trump had not, in fact, just provided U.S.-sanctioned propaganda to one of the country's oldest adversaries.
And then, in his usual style, Trump was thinking out loud about the “great condos” that might one day be built on the “great beaches” of North Korea.
“I explained it,” he said. “You could have the best hotels in the world. Think of it from the real estate perspective.”
As the screens above Trump emphasized, he certainly had.
I get it now. North Korea, a country so poor that it's nearly invisible from space at night, ruled by what may be the most repressive regime in modern history, is one big real-estate opportunity for the Trump family.
It's all about money. Lives, history, nuclear weapons pointed at Tokyo, handing an adversary we are still technically at war with one of the biggest propaganda coups they could dream of: none of that matters as long as Trump can make a buck.
(The frequency of posts today came from running some lengthy automated tests that I have to monitor.)