Trump doctrine on display at United Nations

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Trump doctrine on display at United Nations

President Trump touts U.S. economic, military strength, pledges new approach to foreign aid, U.N. funding in address to the General Assembly; reaction and analysis from the 'Special Report' All-Stars.

This is a rush transcript from "Special Report with Bret Baier," September 25, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: In June I traveled to Singapore to meet face-to-face with North Korea's leader. Since that meeting we have already seen a number of encouraging measures, though much work remains to be done. The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.

SOUTH KOREAN PRESIDENT MOON JAE-IN (through translator): Chairman Kim actually wants to achieve the complete denuclearization of North Korea with President Trump within his first term in office. So in order to make progress he wants to have the second U.S.-North Korea summit as soon as possible.

BRET BAIER, ANCHOR: Before the end of the year?

JAE-IN: Yes, I believe so.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BAIER: My interview with President Moon of South Korea and the president of the United States speaking before the U.N. General Assembly. Let's talk about it all with our panel: national security analyst Morgan Ortagus; Charles Lane, opinion writer for The Washington Post; and Tom Rogan, commentary writer for The Washington Examiner.

Let's start with the president's speech. Morgan, I've already kind of laid out in nuts and bolts what the foreign policy for the Trump administration is.

MORGAN ORTAGUS, NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Right. And they're calling it principled realism or the doctrine of patriotism. What was interesting to me is normally when Donald Trump is in New York City, he's on his home turf. But when he's speaking at the U.N., he's at an away game. And what I mean by that is there are so many people there sitting around the table. He knows that a lot of them have disdain for him, but those same people rely on his security umbrella. And I think we continue to see a president who is very forthright. There is no dancing around what he sees or what he feels. A lot of people were critical of him for calling Germany, for calling out China. I think it is to be expected. His supporters would have been disappointed if he wasn't so forthright.

What remains to be seen for me, the big question is on Iran, because we saw many European nations, Russia, China come together Monday night to discuss potentially a special purpose vehicle in order to evade U.S. sanctions potentially. I think that is very big news. I don't think that European banks who operate in America are going to go along with it. But clearly, he does have the world yet united behind him on his Iran strategy.

BAIER: And we'll see. The sanctions probably go in place November, December, and how that effects Iran will play out. Here are kind of the hits, Iran, Syria, Venezuela from the speech.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Iran's leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction.

At some point we will have meaningful discussions and probably do a deal. I don't see how it works with them otherwise.

The ongoing tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking. But rest assured the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime. We ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela.

Today we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BAIER: Chuck, your thoughts on the speech and the presentation?

CHARLES LANE, THE WASHINGTON POST: The presentation, as always when the president is reading off of a script, he is much more subdued than when he's speaking extemporaneously. And of course you've got to do that in a setting like the U.N. General Assembly where you're trying to be diplomatic and you're sticking to talking points.

In that respect, I didn't see a whole lot new there. I think along with Morgan, I was struck by the overt mention of patriotism and sovereignty, which is not exactly what a group like the United Nations loves to hear. But he was determined to get that across as if there were any question about his philosophy and America first and so on.

And with respect to Iran, I think it is true that there is sort of a moment coming up here between the United States, Europe, and Iran where the Iranians are clearly being restrained in terms of breaking out on the nuclear deal to see if they can somehow work around the U.S. sanctions and perhaps just simply wait out Donald Trump's first term.

BAIER: Obviously he started that speech and got some chuckles in the audience there with his presentation about the superlative, and then he joked about it. He wasn't expecting that response.

Tom, I want to ask you about my interview with the South Korean president. Interesting that he is very optimistic that denuclearization is on track, saying that Kim Jong-un is ready to have inspectors on the ground, ready to have a summit with President Trump before the end of the year, and committed, he says, to complete denuclearization. I asked him every way I could if he believed it, and he said, yes.

TOM ROGAN, THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER: Yes, I think it's interesting, but I think the real takeaway here is that there is a distinction now between what President Moon and what President Trump need. President Moon really wants to have a reduction in tensions, a movement towards a relative consolidation of peace on the peninsula, and frankly I think he is willing to see a future hedging on those nuclear issues, on those ballistic missile issues in a way that the Trump administration has not suggested that it's amenable to.

So there will be a divorce point I think at some level between Moon and Trump on North Korea because at the present track, the indicators, where it matters in terms of the warhead vehicle, in terms of what is going on behind the scenes, yes, not in terms of the missile flights through the atmosphere or into orbit, but in those hidden factories and those hidden research centers, that is a problem that President Trump, Mike Pompeo need to address, and at some point there will be a crunch between these two sides.

BAIER: Quickly, Morgan, President Moon said complete denuclearization by January, 2021. I don't know how you get from here to there, but that's what they're talking about.

ORTAGUS: It's a long way to go. And Bret, I thought your interview broke so much news. It particularly struck me how much Moon talked about unification of the peninsula, and that's something that I haven't heard him talk in that stark of terms before. Listen, this is all, I think, an exercise to get this peace, end the way, a peace agreement. Moon really needs that. His approval rating has gone done by at least 33 percent in South Korea. I think that he would also like to see the sanctions lifted. He wants to do more business with North Korea. He wants that land bridge to China. So I really think that is Moon's end game here and I think that the president should treat it with some skepticism because, as Tom pointed out, there might be different end games here for both.

BAIER: Chuck, I have 15 seconds.

LANE: I just want to emphasize that it was pretty striking to have the president of the United States laughed at by the world community in that, and he sort of tried to recover from it. But it recalls back in 2014 when he was tweeting that Barack Obama had made the country a laughing stock. Not a good contrast for him today.

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