Episode 42 - DMZ idea for Korean Talks
Date: 2018-06-17 | Duration: 3:55
Topics
Persuasion filter prediction for DMZ as location for talks Is DMZ location for negotiation or for celebration?
Transcript
[0:04] I’m back again. I forgot a topic I wanted to talk about. We saw yesterday that the President tweeted asking people’s ideas about having the North Korean peace talks on the DMZ. You remember my first reaction was, “No, the DMZ is a symbol of the war. It’s a symbol of violence, etc. You should do it in Switzerland because that sends a better visual persuasion, a better conceptual persuasion.” But here’s the interesting thing. Let me ask you this: where would be the best place to have a celebration of a successful negotiation? Where would be the best place in the world to celebrate?
[1:05] The best place in the world to celebrate the end of the negotiations—the actual, “We’re done, we got it”—that would be the DMZ. Now think about this: if you did not have total confidence that you were going to get to a real deal that we could be happy with, would you float the idea of doing it in the DMZ? Think about it. Here is an example of the persuasion filter predicting the future. In my opinion, President Trump would never float the idea of the DMZ being in the mix unless the deal was already done.
[2:06] I don’t think he’s operating just on confidence that the deal will be done. I think the deal’s done. Now, that doesn’t mean the details, but I think the broad strokes of “Are they denuclearizing?” and “Are we going to get to something that everyone’s happy with?”—I think we already have our answer. Again, I could be wrong, so I put these out here as predictions. My prediction is that the DMZ—I’m going to move it from “I know that’s a terrible idea” to “best idea ever.” Best idea ever under the condition that the President already knows that we’re going to get to the endpoint. See, I don’t think President Trump is going to show up to negotiate. If anybody thinks that President Trump is going to start negotiating when he shows up to the meeting, then you probably haven’t been paying attention. The negotiations are probably closer to done than starting. The President’s going to go there to celebrate the completion.
[3:07] If you’re going to celebrate the completion of a deal, you don’t want to do that in Switzerland. Here’s why it’s taking so long to figure out where we’re doing it: because it depends if we’re talking or celebrating. You don’t make that decision because you’re still talking, and you don’t know. Are we done? Are we still talking? Are we talking about the celebration, or are we talking about the negotiations? My prediction to you is that the fact that the President even floated the idea to the public—“Hey, do you think we should have this meeting at the DMZ? Wink, wink”—that’s all for today.