U.S. May Settle for Nuclear Freeze
BERMAN: President Trump back this morning from the G-20 Summit. He's at the White House. He spent much of this time over there cozying up to dictators and strong men.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The crown prince of Saudi Arabia, a friend of mine, he sent me a very beautiful birthday card. A lot of friendships have been made. And this is been, in particular, a great friendship. We've had a very, very good relationship. And we look forward to spending some very good time together. A lot of very positive things going to come out of the relationship.</s>BERMAN: I want to get "The Bottom Line" with Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS." And, Fareed, before we get to that, I want to start with breaking news in "The New York Times" this morning that the administration is reportedly considering accepting North Korea as a nuclear state. I mean I think that's the headline there, the tacit acceptance that North Korea has nuclear weapons and instead agreeing on some kind of nuclear freeze going forward. It's not unrelated, by the way, to the idea of cozying up to dictators because it gets to the idea of, what is the United States getting in return?</s>FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN HOST, "FAREED ZAKARIA GPS": Right, the entire way that Trump has handled the North Korean negotiation seems bizarre. He has now met three times with the dictator of North Korea. This has always been a prize. The North Koreans always wanted to meet with the president, always wanted to be invited, obviously, to the White House. And this was always left hanging because the feeling was you're a rogue regime, you're a nuclear power, you're proliferating nuclear weapons, as the North Koreans who provided much of the nuclear technology to Pakistan, we're not going to give you these prizes, meaning the president, you know, White House visits, until you do something that suggests that you're, you know, moving back to at least denuclearizing a certain amount. Trump has given away these prizes for nothing. So that's the puzzle here. As far as what the eventual deal will look like, yes, it's highly likely that we have to accept some kind of North Korean nuclear arsenal. But it should be small. It should be verifiable. It should be inspectable. There should be restraints that make sure they don't proliferate to others, as they have in the past. So what's worrisome here is Trump seems so eager to get a deal, he's given away so many concessions, is the deal he's going to get going to be a good one? Is it going to be bad for America? One thing we can be sure, whatever he gets, he'll claim as the best deal ever. But in reality, if we end up with a bad deal with North Korea, it affects the stability of Asia.</s>CAMEROTA: But isn't there something else that's quite puzzling about this? And we heard it in those sound bites there. Why is a U.S. president so interested in having a great friendship with murderous dictators?</s>ZAKARIA: Well, this is the puzzle about -- about Trump, you know, which is highlighted in this G-20 because there were also at that meeting the democratically elected leaders of our closest allies, Germany, France, Britain. And you notice that he never -- he never speaks that warmly about Angela Merkel or about Macron or about Justin Trudeau. In fact, he often has negative, nasty things to say. Again, what's striking about it is, it seems so easy to game, to play Donald Trump. He mentions that MBS sends him a birthday card. He mentions that Putin flatters him. You know, he's so taken up by that kind of personal flattery that it seems a pretty easy path to, you know, to getting in on his good side. Now, some Democratic leaders have tried it, Abe in Japan, Moon in South Korea, and it works. But I think that the strong men have the ability to, you know, maybe go one step further and also he likes the strength that they present.</s>CAMEROTA: He respects them more than his allies</s>ZAKARIA: He finds democratic leaders constrained. You know, they have to be worried about democratic constraints.</s>CAMEROTA: Human rights.</s>BERMAN: And that's the thing is, look, I'm not naive, we're not naive here. The United States has long dealt with regimes that have questionable human rights records or regimes that might be autocratical or something like that. It's just that he seems to enjoy it. He seems to -- he seems to relish in these relationships somehow.</s>ZAKARIA: And it minimizes a core element of U.S. power, which has always been that the United States stands up for human rights, for values. You know, that has been something that even the most realist of American presidents have always recognized is an important component. It's why people listen to us around the world. It's why we have gotten to set the agenda for so many international meetings. So even Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, who were regarded as the most realist of all -- of all administrations, they got the Soviet Union to sign the Helsinki Accords, which forced to Soviet Union to accept certain human rights standards. I think understanding how to do that is not kind of peripheral to American power, it's what makes for the best use of American power because ultimately, you know, we're the largest country -- economy in the world, but we're not going to be that forever. But we will be the spokesman, the spokesperson for rights, values, democracy, freedom, if you handle it correctly.</s>CAMEROTA: Very quickly, it's all -- it was also just so strange to see President Trump and Vladimir Putin. And President Trump behaving so obsequiously on Friday towards Vladimir Putin, not admonishing him for election interference, instead saying this. Watch this moment.</s>QUESTION: Will you tell Russia not to meddle in the 2020 election?</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes, of course I will. Don't meddle in the election, please. Don't -- don't meddle in the election.</s>CAMEROTA: Don't meddle in our lection, please, he, he, he, he, laughing. Matthew Chance, our correspondent in Moscow, after that said that Vladimir Putin was visibly uncomfortable with the obsequiousness. As you see Kim Jong-un also looks sort of baffled by much of this.</s>ZAKARIA: And you notice Kim Jong-un didn't reciprocate it at any point. Trump keeps saying how fantastically they had gotten on --</s>CAMEROTA: Their friendship is.</s>ZAKARIA: And the warm friendship and --</s>CAMEROTA: He's looking away. Kim Jong-un looks away.</s>ZAKARIA: Right, and -- and Kim Jong-un just pockets the concessions one by one. I think that, you know, that's the larger and more worrisome point is, Putin gave an interview in the FT, in "The Financial Times." And I was reading it and it was an attack on western liberalism, it was an attack on the decadence of the west. And I was thinking to myself, most of this stuff Donald Trump agrees with. You know, to be reading the dictator of Russia, giving an interview and thinking to yourself that the president of the United States has at -- in various points said almost all these things.</s>BERMAN: A remarkable moment in time. Fareed Zakaria, great to have you with us. Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: All right.</s>CAMEROTA: Thanks.</s>BERMAN: All right, so he voted to fight for 9/11 first responders until the very end. UP next, we're going to remember and honor the life of New York City Police Detective Luis Alvarez.