For more than a week, former President Jimmy Carter has been sending strong signals he is willing to go to North Korea and mediate with strongman Kim Jong Un over Kim's threats of a nuclear strike.
“I would go, yes,” Carter told The New York Times’ Maureen Dowd last week, revealing that he had told White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster (“a good friend”) that “I was available if they ever need me.”
But the White House is saying no to the 39th president. Asked by Newsmax Friday if President Trump would consider sending Carter to North Korea, press secretary Sarah Sanders replied: “I don't think that's part of our process at this time.”
“If that changes, we'll certainly let you know,” the president’s top spokesman told me. “But that's not part of our current plan or thinking for how to deal with North Korea.”
A day after Sanders’ comments on Carter, Trump himself tweeted kind words about his 93-year-old predecessor.
Carter, in turn, told the Times’ Dowd that “the media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about."
"Just read the nice remarks by President Jimmy Carter about me and how badly I am treated by the press (Fake News)," Trump tweeted, "Thank you Mr. President!"
John Gizzi is chief political columnist and White House correspondent for Newsmax. For more of his reports, Go Here Now.
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