I don't understand what anyone believes would have been accomplished by bringing up human rights to Kim, other than virtue signalling.
We're trying to convince the guy we're no threat to his regime if he gives up nukes. So how does sending a message that he better fix his human rights record or else further that goal?
Trump is kissing Kim's keister with false flattery. That's because he knows that words are cheap, cost nothing, and if you can get what you want by doing it, you do it ten times out of ten.
If the President doesn’t want to raise human rights during these negotiations, that’s his prerogative. What I’m not fine with is the President of the United States saying things he knows are false (“false flatteryâ€) in an attempt to get what he wants. I think it just further degrades Trump’s credibility to publicly say that Kim loves his people when he’s starving them, torturing US citizens, publicly executing his own relatives, and holding 100+K people in political prison camps.
Words may be cheap but the constant lying, misdirections, and false statements do cost something: the credibility of the President of the United States. I want to believe what my President says, but with this guy, he just makes that impossible.