ABC’s Jon Karl Presses VP Pence on Photo Op With Kim Jong Un: ‘How All The Smiles?’

Vice President Mike Pence sat down for a number of interviews at Joint Base Andrews early Thursday, after welcoming the three American detainees freed from North Korea. In his interview with Jonathan Karl, the ABC News reporter pressed Pence on the administration’s stance with regards to Kim Jong Un.

After discussing the arrival of the three American detainees, Karl asked Pence about the photos from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s second meeting with the North Korean dictator.

“Those photographs — the two of them are all smiles, it’s almost — I mean it’s remarkable, surreal. Big enthusiastic handshake like they’re old friends. How is that possible? You yourself have described Kim Jong Un as one of the most brutal dictators on the planet?”

“What you are seeing is diplomacy,” Pence replied. “But diplomacy that has followed the United States of America speaking truth. It will no longer tolerate the path that North Korea’s been on with regard to nuclear missiles.”

“What’s different today is that the United States has offered no concessions, nothing in exchange and yet we do see, like this remarkable moment, of three Americans coming home and the commitments being made by Kim Jong Un. We see signs that this may be different, and it’s all the result of President Trump’s leadership.”

“The president called Kim Jong Un a madman,” Karl noted. “Was the president wrong back then or is he a madman?”

“Well, we are seeing hopeful signs from Kim Jong Un that he is prepared to embrace complete denuclearization — that’s his words,” Pence said. “President Trump found a way to communicate in terms I believe that Kim Jong Un could finally hear.”

Watch above, via ABC News.

[image via screengrab]

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