The Morning Briefing: NorK Summit Cut Short and Much, Much More

Good Thursday morning.

Here is what’s on President Trump’s agenda today:

The president departs Vietnam to return to Washington, D.C.

Trump leaves North Korea negotiations early, no deal

President Trump and Kim Jong Un were unable to reach an agreement and the president has left Vietnam early. The media and pundit class were concerned that Trump would lower our standards for denuclearizing and make a deal because he’s a big dummy who wants to yap about his negotiation skills. Not so much.

“Sometimes you have to walk,” Trump told reporters after two days of meeting with Kim, but he said he hoped that U.S. and North Korean negotiators would keep talking.

Trump said he was not willing to accept Kim’s demand that the United States end all economic sanctions on North Korea before it committed to a specific denuclearization plan.

“It was about the sanctions,” he said. “We couldn’t give up all the sanctions”

Despite the impasse, Trump continued to praise Kim, calling him “quite a guy and quite a character,” and saying that there still was a lot of “warmth” in his relationship with a man many regard as a brutal dictator.

Good for Trump. Two issues still on the table after the summit are formally ending the Korean War and establishing a liaison’s office in each other’s capital cities. Trump left with those matters unresolved.

The Cohen circus

I watched most of this clown show. What a travesty, especially holding the Trump-hostile Oversight hearing with prison-bound liar Michael Cohen while the president was overseas negotiating with North Korea. If there was any doubt that the Democrats do not care about America, it should have been lifted after yesterday. Whether or not you “like” the president, he still represents America and he was overseas trying to negotiate with a hostile regime. Shame on the Democrats for this.

There weren’t any bombshells. Cohen is a known liar who is going to jail, partly for lying. The real purpose of this hearing was to get some morsels out of Cohen that would provide cover for the Democrats to call out more people like the Trump kids and to create more spectacles before the committee. This “investigation” began as a look at the RUSSIANS’ influence on the election but it was always an investigation into Trump and the Trump orbit to find some crimes. It is fundamentally un-American to do that, at least it used to be. “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime.”

Cohen produced a check and claimed it was reimbursement for paying off a hooker, but we don’t know if that is true since Cohen is a liar. Even so, it’s not illegal to pay a blackmailer. And, by the way, why isn’t the blackmailer in legal trouble? Blackmail is illegal.

Cohen said Trump is a racist and told some stories about his racism, but in order to believe them, we’d have to believe someone who is a liar.

Cohen said that Roger Stone called Trump to tell him he had just talked to Julian Assange and that WikiLeaks was going to dump damaging info on Hillary. We already know that Stone never spoke to Assange, that Stone is a well-known exaggerator, and that WikiLeaks hyped up that they were going to drop some political bombs in advance of doing so. If Trump was “colluding” with RUSSIA, why would Stone need to call and tell him about the WikiLeaks drop? Wouldn’t he have already known from his RUSSIAN cohorts?

Cohen says that Don Jr. slithered into Trump’s office at some point in June 2016 to tell his father that “a meeting had been set up,” which Cohen interpreted to refer to the RUSSIAN Trump Tower honey pot operation that included dossier creators and Fusion GPS’s RUSSIAN clients. Are we supposed to believe the only meeting Don Jr. would tell his father about was the infamous Trump Tower meeting? Please.

My takeaway from this is “get used to it” because this is the new normal for the next two years. And if you voted for a Democrat as your representative in 2016, know that they won’t be busy working on the issues important to you, they will busy exacting revenge on Trump for wining the presidency.

Never forget that Cohen’s lawyer is Clinton pal Lanny Davis, who orchestrated this entire spectacle. Cohen returns to testify again today, but this time it is behind closed doors.

LULZ Trump ex-lawyer Cohen: drugmaker Novartis wanted him to lobby, he refused

Juan Williams is the WORST Fox News panelists get into heated exchange after Cohen testimony: ‘I’m gonna throw you off the set’

Of course it “resurfaces” Clip of Meadows saying send Obama back to ‘Kenya or wherever’ resurfaces after clash with Tlaib

Harris fundraises off Cohen testimony

Any black woman not in step with the Democrat agenda is a prop, yes? Rashida Tlaib berates Mark Meadows for using black woman as ‘a prop’ at hearing

Tucker Carlson: ‘If Michael Cohen Had The Dime’ On Trump, ‘He Would Drop It’

Top takeaways from Michael Cohen’s testimony before Congress

Dems Need a Good Reason to Get Trump’s Tax Returns, and Ocasio-Cortez May Have Gotten One from Cohen

Florida Bar Now Reportedly Investigating Matt Gaetz over Twitter Threat to Michael Cohen

India and Pakistan are having a really big fight right now

Trouble is a-brewin’ The media is too busy covering the freakazoids on the House Oversight Committee and chasing Trump around the globe to try and embarrass him as he tries to negotiate a deal with the NorKs.

India and Pakistan exchanged gunfire through the night into Thursday morning in the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir, a day after Islamabad said it shot down two Indian warplanes and captured a pilot.

And it is serious.

World powers have called on the nations to de-escalate the tensions gripping the contested region since a Feb. 14 suicide car bombing killed over 40 Indian paramilitary personnel. India responded with an airstrike Tuesday inside Pakistan, the first such raid since the two nations’ 1971 war over territory that later became Bangladesh.

The situation escalated with Wednesday’s aerial skirmish, which saw Pakistan say it shot down two Indian aircraft, one of which crashed in Pakistan-held part of Kashmir and the other in India-controlled Kashmir.

Historical picture of the day:

A Texas National Guard armored personnel carrier heads towards the Mount Carmel compound of the Branch Davidians cult near Waco, Texas on Sunday, Feb. 28, 1993. Federal and local law enforcement officials are at a standoff with the cult after cult members opened fire on Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, killing at least four and wounding 15, as they attempted to execute a search warrant on Sunday morning. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)

Other morsels:

Federal judge rules there is no widespread voter fraud in Texas

Here Are The Eight Republicans Who Voted For House Democrats’ Gun Control Bill

The Hollywood Reporter Suggests Hollywood Stress Is To Blame For Smollett’s Hoax

Green New Deal? Biggest US City To Go ‘100 Percent Renewable’ Lost Millions On Solar, Wind Contracts

Student assaults classmate dressed in Trump-themed gear: video

New Jersey teen arrested for beating elderly man over MAGA hat

Chinese rights lawyer disappears on prison release date

Beto O’Rourke reveals he’s ‘made a decision’ ahead of expected presidential run

Double-amputee allegedly shoots doctor in neck inside Florida VA medical center: reports

She’s right on here. Lady Gaga slams rumors of Bradley Cooper relationship, calls social media the ‘toilet of the internet’

Herbalist sentenced after death of diabetic boy advised not to use insulin