Earlier this week, President Donald Trump became the first American president to meet with a leader of North Korea since the end of the Korean War.
But Juliette Kayyem, homeland security expert and author of "Security Mom," said celebrations of the summit were premature. On Boston Public Radio Wednesday, she criticized Trump for promising that the United States will stop conducting military exercises with South Korea, a major concession, with few guarantees from North Korea in return.
"There's a meeting that is just a photo-op, where we seem to give away everything, and Kim seems to be having the time of his life, making fun of how we got played," Kayyem said.
Trump also downplayed North Korea's history of human rights violations, saying Kim "loves his people."According to a 2014 United Nations report, up to 120,000 North Korean citizens were being held in political prisons, where prisoners are "starved, forced to work, and raped." American college student Otto Warmbier died last June after he was tortured in a North Korean labor camp.
Kayyem said that the administration's decision not to discuss North Korea's human rights violations sent a disturbing message to other autocratic regimes.
"It's given every crazy autocrat a 'Get Out of Jail Free' card from the United States, which is not the positioning that Democrats or Republicans have ever agreed to," Kayyem said.
