Shields and Charen on North Korea peace prospects, Ronny Jackson VA vetting

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• Judy Woodruff:

  This week in Washington has been consumed by talks of deals, a possible peace deal for the Korean Peninsula, and discussions with European leaders about the Iran nuclear deal.

  That brings us to the analysis of Shields and Charen. That is syndicated columnist Mark Shields and syndicated columnist Mona Charen. David Brooks is away.

  And we welcome both of you here on this Friday.

  So, we have had this backdrop of a cliffhanger of a relationship between the United States and North Korea. Mark, a lot of tough language shared. But then, this week, we see this remarkable yesterday coming together — early this morning, coming together at the border, the North and South Korean leader.

  How do you read this, and how do you see President Trump's role in it?

• Mark Shields:

  I read it quite superficially, because, unlike our earlier scholars and analysts, I'm not an authority on Korean politics.

  But just looking at it politically, it's a dramatic improvement. Just a few months ago, we were talking about the possibility of a million people being killed on the Korean Peninsula in a war which people feared in some cases was only weeks away.

  And here we are talking about blood relatives reaching across the 38th Parallel, reconnecting, reconciliation between North and South, ending formally 65 years of war between the two.

  And so you ask about President Trump. You know, I think you have to say that, while his unorthodoxy, his inflammatory rhetoric, his unpredictability has been in many cases an impediment to thoughtful and positive relations, actually, here it may have worked. It may be working.

  This is a positive development, an encouraging development. It's not the resolution, but I think this is one case where Donald Trump's style may have worked for positive results.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And we will see what happens, Mona, but at this point, what do you see?

• Mona Charen:

  Well, the optics, as we would put it in Washington, were terrific, stepping across the barrier, both of them and so forth, and making a lot of promises.

  But I think skepticism, deep skepticism is in order. Look, what does Kim Jong-un want? He wants to remain in power. Nuclear weapons are the key to — they're his insurance policy. And he has devoted tremendous effort and tremendous expense to obtain them.

  The idea that he would now wake up one morning and say, you know, forget all that, I actually want to live in peace and I want to denuclearize. And, by the way, as your previous guests said, a lot of dispute about what that means to the two different parties.

  But we have seen over the years the North Koreans. The Kim family has made promises, has made overtures, have promised even to give up their quest for nuclear weapons. And they have never done it. They constantly renege.

  So, I'm deeply skeptical that anything has really changed, except the optics.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And so meantime, Mark, the nuclear deal that exists now between Iran and several other countries, including the U.S., President Trump keeps saying that he doesn't like it, and there is every indication he's going to pull out.

  He's met this week with the leader of — president of France, Emmanuel Macron, then just today with Chancellor Merkel of Germany. Does it look like the president is going to go through with this deal, and how do you see the president as diplomat this week?

• Mark Shields:

  Well, just to respond to Mona's point, all of that is true, the history of relations between North Korea and the rest of the world, the six-nation parlance, under four different American presidents.

  This is different. This raising the stakes by the part of the president himself.

• Judy Woodruff:

  In Korea?

• Mark Shields:

  In Korea.

  And the reality — the reality is, Judy, that the per capita income in North Korea is $1,800. And it's $33,200 in South Korea. And I think there is pressure there. I'm not saying that he's the avenging angel of piece.

  As far as keeping the word and being trust and verify and skeptical, all of a sudden, the shoe is on the other foot. Are we — is our word reliable?

• Judy Woodruff:

  With regard to the Iran…

  (CROSSTALK)

• Mark Shields:

  Iran. Are we going to keep our promise made just three short years ago? Are we going to pull out?

  And right now, I think you would have to say the betting is that that's what the president is going to do. As far as President Macron's visit this week, I think, besides the heavy necking and the light petting that we saw in public between these two grown and married men in our liberalized area here, I don't think there's any question that he absolutely dazzled, and for home consumption and playing to positive reviews in Paris before the Congress.

  And his message was unalloyed and direct and candid to the president about isolationism and its costs.

• Judy Woodruff:

  A direct message to the Congress from Emmanuel Macron, Mona, but it doesn't appear to have changed the president's mind when it comes to this Iran nuclear deal.

• Mona Charen:

  Yes.

  It's hard to understand the position that we should tear up the Iran deal. As somebody who was deeply opposed to the original deal, it just strikes me that once you have given away all the money, which is what we did — we gave them back their $100 million — we have lost all of our negotiating leverage.

  How is it that we are going to get the Iranians to give up something more, when we have already given them what they were after? It seems to me that we don't have the leverage we think we do with this — with the Iran deal.

  Regarding Macron, I think he did the star turn this week. He rally did, because he managed Trump. He flattered him. He got along with Trump and all of that, which isn't the easiest thing to do. And then, when he spoke to Congress, he sounded like the leader of the Western world.

  He was talking about the importance of our obligations and freedom and that we shouldn't retreat into nationalism and protectionism. I thought it was a real star turn. And I thought he did himself a lot of good.

• Mark Shields:

  Let me just agree that I hadn't heard a president with such command of the English language speak to Congress since Barack Obama.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Mark Shields:

  And I just — I was very impressed by Macron's performance.

• Judy Woodruff:

  He did have quite a strong French accent, though.

• Mark Shields:

  He did. It was slightly — but it was no freedom fries.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, let's talk about some more domestic questions.

  Mona, Ronny Jackson, he had been the White House physician for three presidents.

• Mona Charen:

  Yes.

• Judy Woodruff:

  President Trump a few weeks ago quickly, sort of abruptly, suddenly announced that he was his choice to be the next head of the Veterans Administration, when the previous secretary left.

  Now it turns out there are all sorts of questions in his background, and he withdrew.

• Mona Charen:

  Right.

• Judy Woodruff:

  What does this episode say about the president, Mr. Jackson, vetting at the White House?

• Mona Charen:

  Oh, well, vetting, I mean, that's the thing.

  One of the obligations the president has is to be sure, when he puts somebody up for a very important post, that he has done his due diligence. And this president seems to have made a very rash decision. I like this guy. Let's nominate him.

  And, unfortunately, the reason that you vet is so that you aren't embarrassed and that your nominee is not embarrassed. And now somebody whose career has been stellar and who is a rear admiral in the Navy and who has served his country has been dragged through the mud.

  It was extremely unfortunate. And I have to say that a lot of the responsibility — there are two things. There's the toxic nature of our politics that cause people to just air all of these unfounded — or at least unproven allegations. They may or may not be true.

  But the other thing was the failure of the president in the first place to do his due diligence, select the proper nominee.

• Judy Woodruff:

  What did you see there?

• Mark Shields:

  The president was impulsive. He did it on a whim.

  He trusted his own manifestly flawed judgment again. And I think it's fair to say that he did a disservice, not simply to himself, to the government, to the people of the country, to Ronny Jackson, for the failure of due diligence, but he did an increasing disservice to the 20.5 million American veterans, 9.5 million of whom depend personally and individually on Veterans Administration services.

  And this is an enormous — 375,000 employees.

• Judy Woodruff:

  You mean because they have to wait?

  (CROSSTALK)

• Mark Shields:

  They have the wait. And we know that it's been a flawed agency and a flawed institution and the services have been imperfect, not that it ever will be perfect.

  But certainly veterans, for whom we pay great lip service in this country about thanking them for their service endlessly, it would be, rather, an improvement, a positive development if we did provide the services we pledged beginning with Abraham Lincoln to the widow and the orphan and the veteran.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Well, the president said he was concerned about all those things. But…

• Mona Charen:

  He said it a thousand times during the campaign.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And continue on.

  So, another one of the president's choices, and that is Mick Mulvaney, the former congressman from South Carolina, chosen by the president to run the Office of Management and Budget, raised a few eyebrows this week, Mona, with — he was giving a speech to a group of bankers.

  And here's part of what he said. He was talking about his time as a congressman. He said, "If you're a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn't talk to you. If you're a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you."

  A lot is being said about this comment, about the way Washington works or doesn't work and whether — how business gets done here. What do you think?

• Mona Charen:

  Well, I love this topic because it gives me a rare opportunity to defend a Trump administration official, which I haven't been doing much of lately.

  Mulvaney's other — the other part of that quote was, if you're a member of my district, if you're a constituent of mine, I will see you no matter what, even if you haven't given me a dime.

  All right. So, that's part of it.

  But the other — this synthetic outrage that has been heard from the Democrats about, oh, my gosh, it's pay for play and this is horribly corrupt, and Elizabeth Warren said that this is the most corrupt administration in history, which it might be, but this doesn't prove it.

  And Sherrod Brown said that — was denouncing Mulvaney. Look, they take — both Sherrod Brown and Elizabeth Warren take donations from special interests. They — Warren takes from Google, Comcast, Time Warner. Brown takes from Squire Patton Boggs, a big lobbying firm in D.C., one of his biggest contributors.

  So, I think some of this is really faux outrage and a tempest in a teapot.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Are you outraged?

• Mark Shields:

  I am.

  I think it's a scandal. I think the system is a scandal. The average price of a United States Senate race increased to $10.6 million in 2016. That is up $1.8 million from two years earlier.

  You're constantly raising money. Mick Mulvaney puts the lie to the old cliche that, I'm not influenced by those who give me money. I'm obviously influenced by people who give me money, if those are the only ones I talk to, unless somebody wants to get on a Trailways bus from Greenville, South Carolina, and travel overnight and knock on the door and get a pass to the House and tell Mr. Mulvaney what he or she really feels.

  This is a system, Judy, that is awash, and has been for too many years. It's dark money. It's secret money. It's money that I spend on your behalf, so you as a candidate don't have to declare it, so I can attack your opponent. It's a corrupt and corrupting system.

  And it diminishes everybody who is connected with it.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And not all of it's disclosed.

• Mona Charen:

  Well, I would say we have made so many efforts to shield politics from the influence of money, and none of it has worked. None of it could possibly work.

• Mark Shields:

  I disagree — '76, '84, '88, we had four elections in a row where we did keep limits, were publicly financed, and they were fair and full elections, with no funny money on either side.

• Mona Charen:

  Well, look, I'm not convinced.

  I think that the only way to get money out of politics is to get politics out of money. The reason that these people give the money is because there's so much government in their lives, so much interference with the marketplace. And because their livelihoods are at stake, they're going to spend money to influence the government.

• Mark Shields:

  It began with Mark Hanna, first Republican boss, who said, there are two things that matter in politics. Money, and I can't remember the second thing.

  (CROSSTALK)

• Mark Shields:

  And they have lived with that ever since.

• Mona Charen:

  Exactly.

• Mark Shields:

  It's a corrupt system,. And it corrupts anybody in it.

• Mona Charen:

  Well, but how do we change it?

• Mark Shields:

  Public financing.

• Mona Charen:

  I'm not…

• Mark Shields:

  Public financing changed it. It changed it.

  We elected Ronald Reagan twice under it. And he abided by it. He had limitations on what he could raise and what he could spend.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And we're going to keep talking about it, even after we go off the air.

  (LAUGHTER)

• Mark Shields:

  All right. OK.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Mark Shields and Mona Charen, thank you both. Thank you.

• Mark Shields:

  Thanks.