In his post-summit press conference, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether he took notes in order to verify assurances North Korea’s Kim Jong-un made behind closed doors. “Well, I don’t have to verify because I have one of the great memories of all time,” the president replied. “So I don’t have to, okay?”
That said, he was willing to discuss some of the topics of conversation with the dictator, including Trump’s acknowledgement that he spoke to Kim about beachside real-estate opportunities.
According to the president’s version of events, he used an iPad to show Kim a video prepared by the White House about a possible bright future for North Korea, full of economic development. Trump told reporters:
“I told him, ‘You may not want this. You may want to do a much smaller version of this. I mean, you’re going to do something. But you may want to do a smaller version. You may not want that with the trains and the everything. You know, it’s super — everything the top. And maybe you won’t want that.’
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“It’s going to be up to them. It’s going to be up to them. It’s going to be up to the people what they want. They may not want that. I can understand that too.
“But that was a version of what could happen, what could take place. As an example, they have great beaches. You see that whenever they’re exploding their cannons into the ocean, right? I said, ‘Boy, look at the view. Wouldn’t that make a great condo behind?’ And I explained, I said, ‘You know, instead of doing that, you could have the best hotels in the world right there.’ Think of it from a real-estate perspective.”
The president apparently added that real-estate values between China and South Korea could be especially lucrative.
I’m not saying the Republican is already sketching out plans for Trump Tower Pyongyang in his mind, but let’s not rule out the possibility.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
