Hour 2: Trump Scales Back South Korea Exercises | Prof. Robert Parkinson on Tyrants and Rogues

Well, that happens to take us right into one of the sharpest foreign policy controversies of the last few weeks.

And I'm talking specifically about about President Trump's order to substantially reduce our annual joint military exercises with our friend, or at least our former friend, South Korea.

Now, this is not abstract.

This is about a 73-year-old alliance.

28,500 American troops are still stationed on the peninsula.

A nuclear arm to North Korea that just test-fired missiles again, and a president who our president, who says he has a quote-unquote very good relationship with Kim Jong-un while publicly punishing an ally for saying no thanks on Iran.

You heard that whole story, didn't you, Alex? I mean, you brought it up the other week when we were on air.

Not only did I

hear about it, I'm infuriated about it.

Yeah, it really bothered

you.

Why was that, Alex?

because they would not help us attack Iran, and so what does Trump do? Well, if you're not going to go along with us, we're going to reduce helping you.

It's such a bad way to run foreign policy, though.

It was retaliatory.

Do you think that that was a smart move on Trump's part, though, to align with... with a regime that believes in killing its people and the use of nuclear weapons as opposed to our ally down south.

Oh, I think it was a bad move.

And not only that, you're talking about a country that has literal weapons tests landing there, right? The ballistic missiles that North Korea tries.

I mean, this is very frustrating.

And I don't like this part of Trump's presidency where he cannot really help out someone who doesn't disagree with him.

That is his real character flaw.

It does suggest a problem.

I mean, this is what he wrote, Merton, and you can chime in on.

On August 16th, the president posted this on Truth Social.

Here it is word for word, okay? Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong-un of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has long ago agreed to participate in joint military exercises with South Korea.