Show flops...

In Hanoi and at home, the Trump show flops

By Pat Wiedenkeller

What a big double bill it was -- President Donald Trump taking the world stage for a nuclear summit with Kim Jong Un of North Korea, just as his former fixer-lawyer, Michael Cohen, was appearing before a Congressional committee for a one-man revue about schemes, lies and porn-star payoffs.

Two shows, same theme, wrote Frida Ghitis: a President exposed. "A clear portrait of a morally hollow presidency."

"Cohen described a man devoid of principles and determined to win in pursuit of money, power and prestige," Ghitis said. "And, in Hanoi, we saw the risks of having such a man as President."
She was referring, in part, to Trump's "shameful" betrayal of an American citizen, Otto Warmbier, when Trump told the world that he accepted the dictator's word that Kim didn't know North Korea had fatally tortured Warmbier. "Trump has a well-established affinity for dictators, and he's known for taking their word over that of his own experts," she noted, citing his absolutions of Vladimir Putin and Mohammed bin Salman.

Dealmaker Trump left Vietnam empty-handed. But Nathan Park insisted it's Kim Jong Un who should be feeling the pressure now. "Trump and his unconventional approach to diplomacy represented the best chance for North Korea to win any concession from the United States." And the explosive allegations on Capitol Hill ("an administration beginning to teeter," wrote Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times) could mean that Kim doesn't have much time.

Trump might have felt sunnier about things earlier in the week when he tweeted about a Fourth of July bash he was planning at the Lincoln Memorial, featuring an "address by your favorite President, me!" But Dean Obeidallah wondered: "Perhaps, come July 4th, Trump wants the American people to show him the same 'love' and 'great fervor, as Trump put it, that North Koreans have for Kim?!"