I keep thinking of this story whenever I see stuff about the US-NK summit…

For years, a story circulated in Washington about Donald Trump’s attempt to nab a job leading nuclear negotiations with the Soviet Union in the nineteen-eighties. His book “The Art of the Deal” had been on the Times best-seller list for forty-eight weeks. Trump apparently thought that he could do a deal one-upping anybody—and wanted to prove it. He lobbied quite hard, I was told, with the George H. W. Bush Administration. The White House instead appointed Richard Burt, the U.S. Ambassador to West Germany during the run-up to the fall of the Berlin Wall and a longtime expert on nuclear-arms talks.

Shortly thereafter, by coincidence, Trump and Burt attended the same society wedding in New York. At the reception, Trump walked up to Burt—whom he didn’t know—and said, “So you’re the guy?”

Burt, who confirmed the story to me, acknowledged his new position. Trump then said, “Let me tell you what I would have done if I’d been appointed.” He explained that he would have welcomed—very warmly—the Soviet delegation. He would have made sure the country’s envoys were comfortable—very comfortable—at the table.

Then, Trump told Burt, he would have stood up, shouted “Fuck you!,” and left the room. (The White House did not respond to a request for comment.)

I can absolutely see Trump doing the exact same thing to Kim Jung Un. And I can absolutely see it ending with Kim (and our allies) pissed the fuck off. Then, I imagine a peace process that moves forward without us.