Radio host Michael Savage stepped away from the standard conservative talking points Tuesday while weighing in on the Trump-Korea Summit.
Striving for intellectual honesty, Savage looked to history to interpret the implications of the momentous meeting, citing Reagan’s strong appeal to Gorbachev and Chamberlain’s fruitless attempt to make peace with Hitler:
Partial Transcript:
My view of this summit is that it was somewhere between Reagan and Chamberlain, but what was really achieved last night? Yes, this was a diplomatic breakthrough, but all history shows us we must remain vigilant.
History shows us that North Korea has made promises in the past, and broken them repeatedly. Kim has signed documents before. In October of 1994, Bill Clinton made a speech about a landmark nuclear agreement between the US and North Korea saying, “This agreement is good for the United States, good for our allies, and good for the safety of the entire world.” So what makes this different?
Well, the leaders are different. Kim Jong -un is not his father, Donald Trump is not Bill Clinton. Maybe that can make a difference?
The document they signed said it would work towards complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula in exchange for security guarantees to Kim, including halting military exercises. But it said nothing about human rights abuses, nothing about the tens of thousands of people dying in death camps.
There was another document signed once upon a time by two men, their names were Neville Chamberlin and Adolf Hitler. The document was declared to guarantee “peace in our time”. Then Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, Bohemia and Moravia on his way to taking over Europe.
When asked by an NBC reporter about calling Kim very talented, knowing that he’s killed family members, citizens and Otto Warmbier, Trump said he “is very talented to be able to run a nation, not that he’s running it nice, he’s very tough, but he didn’t say anything about it.”
How can you gloss over the death and starvation of millions of people like that? It’s almost like the old New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who famously ignored and denounced reports of famine in Ukraine under Soviet control, and often explained away the brutality of Joseph Stalin, saying it was necessary to implement that system. Stalin, loved the coverage he got from Duranty as he ruthlessly imprisoned and killed millions. Duranty even got a Pulitzer for his efforts.
Yes, reporters at the press conference in the early morning today asked President Trump about these abuses to their credit. But Trump’s answers were lacking. You can say that’s diplomacy, but Reagan wasn’t afraid to call the Soviet Union an evil empire or tell Gorbachev to tear down that wall.
This is not an average business deal. This is tens of millions of lives on the line. So while this is a decent first step, these crimes must be addressed, and we need proof that they will stop. Today, we are somewhere between Reagan and Chamberlain.
