Eli Lake, Columnist

Is There a Method to Trump’s North Korean Madness?

A defector from the authoritarian regime sees a U.S. president carefully keeping his options open.

May 27, 2019 at 11:00 PM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

But do they really understand each other?
Photographer: Handout/Getty Images AsiaPac

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U.S. President Donald Trump often sounds more desperate for a deal than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. The latest example came on Monday, when Trump insisted that North Korea had not tested ballistic missiles earlier this month — contradicting not only his own national security adviser but also the prime minister of Japan.

After some speculation about Kim’s motivation, Trump doubled down on an earlier tweet. “All I know is that there have been no nuclear tests,” he said. “There have been no ballistic missiles going out, no long-range missiles going out.”