Mixed messages on signs of progress at President Trump's second summit with Kim Jong Un

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Mixed messages on signs of progress at President Trump's second summit with Kim Jong Un

While both President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have expressed optimism, the White House has announced that the timing of Trump's solo press conference has been moved forward; analysis from Fox News contributor Daniel Hoffman, former CIA station chief.

This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," February 27, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: All right, Hannity, thank you very much and good luck tomorrow, we'll be watching the interview with President Trump. I am Laura Ingraham, this is “The Ingraham Angle” from a very busy Washington and of course, in Vietnam.

You're looking live at Hanoi, Vietnam where the President Trump is just beginning a long day of meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Now we're waiting to see the two leaders again emerge for a working lunch as this high stakes summit nears a close and we're going to bring you all of that as it happens a lot of it in this hour.

You're not going to want to turn the dial. Meanwhile as Trump and Kim appear, check this out, I have to bring this you. Just moments ago, to convene this summit, the start of an event that again, arguably affects the lives of billions of people on the planet, I want you to show what the other networks were doing.

They were stuck on line Michael Cohen. This went on for at least five minutes. So no time to cover the global summit between sworn enemies.

It's been 261 days since their first historic meeting and just moments ago, Trump seemed optimistic about where this one could be headed while Kim offered some extremely rare comments including what is thought to be the first time he has responded to a journalist question on camera.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KIM JONG-UN, SUPREME LEADER, NORTH KOREA (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): There are people who are welcoming this meeting, but I'm sure that all of them will be watching the moment that we are sitting together side by side as if they're watching a fantasy movie.

We have made a lot of efforts so far and we thought that now it's time for us to come to Hanoi, sit together and have this wonderful dialogue. Let me assure you that I will do all my best to bring a good result ultimately today, thank you.

DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, Kim.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, I just want to remind all of you, what I said, okay? First of all, you don't see Kim talking very often, okay? He's a dictator, we know the evil things that he has done. The other networks were not covering it, unless I was missing something. And Raymond Arroyo is here.

We were watching - now they're going to cut away from Cohen to cover this, right? They did not, they had a side box on MSNBC but the host just kept talking about Michael Cohen. I have never seen anything like that moment.

Plenty of time to cover Cohen, I'm not saying, you shouldn't cover it but they refused to break away from the get-Trump coverage.

It's just absolutely wild. All right, questions. Are we going to see America getting closer to some type of peace treaty with North Korea on the path to denuclearization? These are big questions. Will there be a formal end of the Korean War, remember we have an armistice in place, war never officially ended.

To help us answer these questions, we're joined by an amazing panel, David Morey, former adviser to Barack Obama and has been to North Korea nearly 90 times. Amazing, Walid Phares, Fox news contributor, Foreign policy analyst of this entire region and we're pleased to have former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, host of the new podcast which is fabulous by the way.

Newt's world, available now on Apple podcast. Such an important night for so many reasons. I want to talk to you first, Mr. Speaker. This historic night which makes it all the more shocking that Washington today and yesterday and tomorrow chose this time to be locked on to Cohen.

Could have done it next week, they could have done it anytime, they had to keep it going while the President's at the summit. Thoughts on that.

NEWT GINGRICH, R-GA, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, look, I think the Democrats are becoming a party which doesn't mind weakening America if that gets them where they want to go. I think that the news media, at least 80% of it hates the idea that Trump could succeed.

I mean if Trump and Kim Jong-un actually get a major breakthrough, I don't know how the New York Times and Washington Post and the CNN will cope with that without having a nervous breakdown.

So I think in that sense, it's absurd, it's also frankly an American problem, we are so focused on devouring ourselves that we forget there's a larger world out there and this is a very, very real problem now that we get dominated by junk and when Cohen- I mean Cohen today is an absurdity.

And yet it was an excuse for the news media to be terribly excited to learn a whole lot of brand new things. All it's just garbage.

INGRAHAM: Oh, it's a Pavlovian response, Southern district, Southern district, it's like a Milk bone hanging above a dog. My two dogs love milk bone. So they open the drawer and they'll think there's a milk bone in and they'll just do anything.

GINGRICH: But remember, the Southern district - the Southern district has to matter because they're already being into hedge on Mueller not reporting anything. Mueller had to matter because Comey didn't report anything.

Comey had to matter because Hillary lost.

INGRAHAM: Whack them all.

GINGRICH: They have just been going on through this cycle of desperation which is, I think not going to end as long as Donald Trump's in office.

INGRAHAM: David, I want to go to you because former members of the Obama administration who I mean, I have to believe in good faith wanted to - you're an expert in the region, wanted to make a real breakthrough in this Korean peninsula.

McArthur said if we didn't finish it in Korea, we were going to be dealing with it 50 years later and he was a brilliant strategist in just that part of the world which we don't talk about enough. Meanwhile even I've done that radio and with Newt for decades but people don't focus on this.

Given your expertise and all the time you spent here, is this not significant for the other networks not in to be covering. The two people sitting next to each other. Six months ago, it was going to cause a semi- nuclear war.

DAVID MOREY, FORMER ADVISER TO BARACK OBAMA: It's gigantic and the last three administrations Laura, as you know, have failed by their own admission at solving this. If we had a war which many people thought we might a year and a half ago, that's $1 billion in damage and a million people like that.

The relationship between the President and President Kim is impressive and we all know President Kim - President Trump is really good in a room. He can sell and that's a really good thing but remember President Kim is no boy scout and what I worry about is, are we going to skip past the inventory stage and all of a sudden end the Korean War which is a good thing, we can't give away or carrots too quickly because we'll run out of carrots.

We got to really - you can't do an agreement without a solid inventory accounting of facts. That's going to be interesting to see what happens coming out of Vietnam.

INGRAHAM: NBC earlier tonight, again we're focusing on the media because this is a lens through which so many Americans see what's happening on the world stage and of course, in relation to President Trump.

Around 6:00 PM tonight NBC went with this huge story about what seemed kind of strange to me, about how the U.S. has dropped the desire or the demand to have a full accounting from North Korea of its nuclear arsenal, nuclear material before the summit began which kind of met, well, that's what - what the heck is the summit going to get, if you don't have these basic facts.

The administration came out just moments ago to I believe, Ed Henry and said, absolutely untrue, we never said that and it's completely wrong. But so people watch this going, Trump is not accomplishing anything, he's not even holding them, holding their feet to the fire.

Walid, just that one report tells us a lot about the dishonesty in the American media on this important night.

WALID PHARES, FOX NEWS FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Well, Mr. Speaker is a historian -

INGRAHAM: It's Bret Baier by the way, not Ed Henry who got the news.

PHARES: So Mr. Speaker would tell me better what I want to say right now. Historians in the future, do you think they're going to be writing books about the Cohen hearing or they're going to be you know writing articles and books about what has been achieved today.

We look at it from a strategic perspective, about 6 to 7 decades from a war, a cold war to basically firing missiles recently to suddenly those missiles are not being fired anymore, we have remains coming back to us.

And of course, we have a process that is moving forward at this point in time. I think it is a strategic success but I think at the same time that the real success is going to be when North Koreans are going to be walking into South Korea.

Remember, what happened between the two Germanys. The minute East Germans were able to walk into West Germany, it was done.

INGRAHAM: Newt, I want to play for you, I guess, again to reset this conversation to see as you've written about and spoken about so many times, Newt. What people said and where we are today? The prognosticators of pain. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It may be difficult for some of you at home to wrap your mind around the U.S. President who makes statements like this about the use of nuclear weapons which would of course murder millions of people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Too late after 100,000 Americans die.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: After a nuclear Holocaust.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Or after a million die in Seattle.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's where we are. This is not an exaggeration.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, this is precisely the thing that keeps me up at night, literally. Since Trump is inaugurating it -

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This kept me up at night.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Literally, I am afraid that -

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: You know what keeps me up at night? That people have completely abdicated the role of impartial arbiters of important world events.

GINGRICH: Well, okay, I think you have to recognize that we're in the middle of a cultural civil war, that the anti-Trump wing at every level on every topic is going to be fighting him but what's amazing is and I'll just give you an example.

The people of North Korea and you probably know more about this than I do having been there a number of times and I've not, I've been in South but not North but people in North Korea are watching the TV coverage.

Because it's a key part of - and they're all of a sudden seeing parts of the world they didn't know existed. And they're seeing people who are behaving with a prosperity they didn't know was possible.

And everybody in his team who's going with him on the entire Kim Jong-un establishment, they're all looking around on, not bad, this could be okay. And part of Trump's big sales pitch is wouldn't you rather be really prosperous.

And I think that there's something going on here that you know, I saw Kim Jong-un the other night give a speech and correct me if I got this wrong but it's the first time I'd ever seen him in a western suit.

MOREY: Yes.

GINGRICH: You know, and he was giving this speech, he's giving a speech which his own people were watching. He was not in the military style uniform, he wanted to look like he was normal, the setting was normal.

And if you're coming out of that kind of dictatorship, these signals just to go through the whole society and this is what Trump is achieving.

INGRAHAM: David, when we think about the pain and suffering and the death and destruction that has been brought about by totalitarianism over the last 100, just the last 100 years -120 years and what's happened in North Korea and the deep suffering, the torture, everything that we know takes place there on a daily basis.

And you see this glimmer of life, we don't know where it's going to go, we hope it goes in a good direction. But I would think that all of these Democrats who have been talking about the need for peace and make love, not war and all. That even if it's Trump, that this is something to say, gosh, we hope something really good comes out of this.

And we got to be cautious but this is interesting, I mean, what is more interesting than Kim Jong-un sitting there and Trump saying, well, I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic for what I feel right now. I have a good feeling that good results are going to come out.

I mean that's unbelievable.

MOREY: Little fact, correct it there, it's been South Korea 90 times, not North Korea but I do know North Korea and Laura, you're absolutely right what you're saying. I mean, you know how change works. You know, you've written about revolution Mr. Speaker. I mean, it's the little things.

It's West German, it's East Germans watching West German TV, right? It's the little things and to give President Trump credit which the Democratic Party my friends won't necessarily like. He's taking a creative out of the box approach. I just want to make sure, we get an inventory before we give a lot of carrots and you would agree.

I mean the flaw in the Iran treaty was thinking the treaty itself would change the regime so the process itself won't change its regime but these little bubbles may just a erupt and change -

INGRAHAM: It was interesting Trump said tonight, we can take our time. On the one hand, they're criticizing Trump for doing stuff too fast. You're too fast, you're shooting from the hip and tonight he's like, we can take our time, we can get through this because this is complicated.

So when he's damned if he does and he's damned if he doesn't. If he's too fast, the critics - too slow, oh we need results now and I think regular folks watching this tonight, I think they're more captivated by real positivity and hope than they are about someone grousing because he's going off to jail and he's you know didn't become Chief of Staff.

I don't know, except for that sliver note of the activists on the Left who, they have to put all their chips in the Mueller basket, then it's got to be in southern district. Now it's Michael Cohen, he's going to deliver our nirvana.

GINGRICH: Well, look, I mean, I think the genuine hostile now left is real but I think that for the average American, the President's going to win today. They're going to look at the noise in the Congress, they're going to look at these scenes from Hanoi and I would say the one thing where I think Trump's really matured in thinking about this.

If he has a process started, it is worth a great deal not to stop it. And if that means, the next step is we've been talking about a peace treaty after all. We've had a state of war, we never had a declared war. We've had a state of war since 1950.

My dad fought there in 53 so you have 69 years of a state of war. The South Koreans are desperate to have some kind of sense of stability. If in the near future, there's a North Korean representative agency in Washington and an American representative agency in Pyongyang, just the act of having those people walking around.

INGRAHAM: They are talking.

GINGRICH: They're talking.

INGRAHAM: Talking is better than fighting. We don't need another war on the Korean peninsula. We're going to get into - we move on, we're going to get into China's hand in all this and so forth. I know Walid, you want to get in on that. Any moment by the way, they're going to come out and talk and we have this amazing analysis.

I want to go live first on the ground in Hanoi, Chief National Correspondent Ed Henry is there for us tonight. He has more on the now debunked NBC report, Ed, this was wild, this broke and everyone's going crazy on Twitter, I saw it.

ED HENRY, CORRESPONDENT: Well, you're right, right and they're saying that you know that the summit's failed before it's even gotten going and the story seems to not be true. NBC reported that the President of the United States in these meetings with Chairman Kim basically has given up on the idea of getting what David's talked about, a moment ago which is an important document or accounting.

A list of all of North Korea's nuclear sites, their weapons and a full accounting, that's NBC's claim. A senior administration official just told our colleague Bret Baier that that is completely false, that the President has not given that up in these negotiations. Instead, let me tell you what U.S. officials here on the ground in Vietnam are telling us.

That this is still the early stages. They're not expecting at this summit to get that list, it's not like Chairman Kim is going to say, here it all is. The U.S. will continue to demand this information, continue to negotiate with Kim Jong-un and then down the road when they leave Hanoi, there are going to be working groups on both the North Korean and U.S. sides likely created like you would at any other summit.

This is not a Trump creation, this is normal business where you will then do the details and try to get that accounting and so the real point is as David was suggesting a moment ago, the Trump administration is insisting to us that right now at this summit in real time, they are not planning to relieve the U.S. sanctions that Kim Jong-un wants relieved until they get that full accounting that will help us understand that in fact North Korea is denuclearizing.

So basically this report the White House says is false is suggesting the President has given up on a full accounting. A, they say that's false and B, they say Yongbyon which is one of the nuclear facilities that may be sort of given up here in the talks by Kim Jong-un.

Let's remember as I understand it, David will know the granular details better than I, there are over 300 facilities as part of that and it's something like four square miles so it's not like over lunch here in Hanoi, you're going to get every last detail about that facility or all of the facility.

So the White House is basically saying, this is a red herring that is simply not true, Laura. INGRAHAM: Okay, Newt again, the press gets it wrong overwhelmingly on this issue. Looks like there's some progress.

GINGRICH: But notice how the press gets it wrong. If it's anti Trump, the press jumps. If it's pro-Trump, they don't notice it so consistently when you see the press jumping, you have to just ask yourself a simple question. Is it anti-Trump, if it is, you say, well, let's wait a little while and see if it's true.

INGRAHAM: Yes, they were - they were saying a few months ago that Alan Weissenburg, the CFO of Trump was a cooperating witness for the southern district of New York. Totally not true. They had to come out today and say well, he's not a cooperating witness. Okay, well, we'll find out what he has to say but it sounded good against Pavlovian response from the press.

Walid, from what Ed just said.

PHARES: Well, basically I think that the President is moving in the right direction and I think, this is creating backlash in the media, general times. They want to try to change the facts and the President is achieving all these important steps and as our friend has said, it's a multitude of little steps.

If I may speak about China just one second.

INGRAHAM: Yes, please, I was going to ask about it, thank you.

PHARES: I think the President engagement with China has left a huge impact on the behavior of North Korea. Remember, he engaged them, then there were missiles fired into the Pacific. President Trump deployed task forces.

Kim went to China, went back and said, I'm ready for negotiations. What would that mean? It means the Chinese told him, we are in business now. We don't want to do a war because of you.

So that was the signal for came to engage and accept. It was our deployment plus engagement.

INGRAHAM: Multilateral responses were put up on the screen just for people who are maybe unfamiliar with what our relationship with - China is North Korea's largest provider of food, fuel and industrial machinery. China's support for North Korea dates back of course, to the Korean War. North Korea's largest trading partner is China. Roughly 90% of all their trade is with China.

Some with Russia, Iran also. Kim Jong-un has visited China four times. Most recently, last month. David, China is like the hand - the unseen hand in all of this, is it not and the trade pressure that Trump has put on China, all of this, this all comes into you know, I think a stark reality of a perhaps different Korean peninsula because of this engagement.

MOREY: Absolutely because nothing gets done without China. People say we overestimate China's ability to get a deal done. China is in the middle of this and if we can get the trade issue sorted out, that's a big if. Imagine a world where the U.S. and China don't cooperate on North Korea, on global terrorism, on you name your issue.

So it's really encouraging that we're getting closer on the China trade deal, the market's reflected already this day so let's keep our fingers crossed that things are going well now in Hanoi.

INGRAHAM: And in just a moment, the President is set to come out with Kim and we believe, they'll be taking questions from the media, Newt. What - I mean, I never - I mean, I have to say, after seeing Madeleine Albright try her deal in 94 and then John Kerry, we've seen a lot of people try and didn't get all that far.

It seems like we're getting farther but I think David is right, we - it takes - this little dance here, this is a long dance, he's got to save face.

GINGRICH: This is different dance because Madeleine Albright dancing with Kim Jong-un didn't actually get -

INGRAHAM: Kim Jong-il, right? Kim Sung-il, his father.

GINGRICH: Yes, the father, she danced with him when they were there and that apparently didn't move -

INGRAHAM: That's true, the champagne glasses.

GINGRICH: It didn't move the market. But look, I think everybody watching tonight, if you see Kim Jong-un answering questions off the cuff to the news media, you're seeing a historic change that every person in North Korea is going to pick up on.

I mean it is an enormous moment because he's coming out of the shell of total control into a world where he's now trying to interact with Trump in a way that makes him more normal and I think, there's a real piece of this of trying to become normal.

And I think he's a young guy still, he was educated in Switzerland and actually has a much better sense of the larger world than either his father or his grandfather and I also think he understands that they're at the end of the road. I mean, I think the most important thing with the Chinese was that when Kim Jong-un was in Mar-a-Lago was the night that we used missiles in Syria.

And he went back - he went back-

INGRAHAM: Pass the chocolate sauce for the dessert because we just - the bombs just went.

GINGRICH: But I think he went back home and part of what they said to Kim Jong-un is, this guy is a very tough man and he will do things that will harm you.

MOREY: Just a supporting point on that. North Korea has an average per capita the same as Nepal. Compared to South Korea, this Dynamo, if there is progress here Laura, the bubbling up of the Korean work ethic even though it's North Korea, my gosh, what that would do over a decade so that's the encouragement here.

That's the optimism and obviously Kim is looking at that, he is got that carried in his mind, you can see it.

GINGRICH: And then he's young enough, if he could imagine 30 years from now presiding over a very prosperous, very normal country.

INGRAHAM: I mean, he's a young man. I mean he is a dictator thug but he's a young man, he gets off that train, he's like, God, it would have been easier to fly. He's on a train for 3 days, they didn't have a plane. Remember, they didn't have a plane that was capable of getting there, that's how bad it is, Walid.

And again, peace versus war. War is awful and Trump in part won this election because he said, what we had done in Iraq and what we had done and still in Afghanistan, we are way too over exposed in these parts of the world, we thought we could change it.

We thought we could - wonderful service men but we got to do it a different way. It's not 1986. We don't have the same economy we had then. That resonated with people and all these Democrats, where will they get a Republican President who is more loving peace than Trump.

Trump loves peace.

PHARES: That out of argument, I think but I think that in Korea, the South will be the force that would denuclearize the North, when they engage with each other. They're going to find formula, economic infrastructural and the North Korean will commit to do one thing at least with us.

Stop targeting our cities as Boris Yeltsin did in 1991 at the end of the Cold War and then number 2, making sure that the forces along the line will start deploying further away and phase number 3, South Korea will be the one to energize and create renaissance of the North.

I don't know, you're the expert but -

INGRAHAM: Yes, a friend of mine, Steven Lenton who is traveled so many times to North Korea for a TB, he's like a missionary, does that work. He said people forget that all people have pride and even if you're a citizen of North Korea and you don't have enough food or you don't have the technology, they're proud people.

Just like the Russians. I mean, I lived in Soviet Union, they're proud people, they have a history, they're not like us, are different but we have to remember that you have to give people kind of a graceful way out of a bad situation and even when it's a dictator.

MOREY: Yes.

INGRAHAM: Don't you - I mean, don't you all agree on that.

GINGRICH: Absolutely.

MOREY: And they'll need to save face, this is a way of saving face, economic recovery and even though we have a long way to go, I think we all need to be a little cautious. The Koreans are emotional people.

INGRAHAM: They are.

MOREY: When you - I always imagine that when you get these family reunions cooking between North and South Korea, you want to talk about emotion and emotion drives everything.

INGRAHAM: East and West Berlin, I mean, Newt, I mean, you were - you were in Congress in the East West Berlin, I mean the whole -

GINGRICH: Well, I think another thing to remember here is this is the opposite of the way his school of diplomacy would teach it. You know, the school of diplomacy is very careful, have the staff working -

INGRAHAM: Communiques, John Kerry's like we need more communiques.

GINGRICH: What Trump intruded was, here's a guy who if I treated with dignity, gained so many psychological points that he can afford to relax a little bit and maybe we can get to a deal.

INGRAHAM: You see him smile, he smiled.

MOREY: Yes, he looks different.

INGRAHAM: I mean, when he smiled today I thought - I mean, look, he could be smiling trying to pull wool over everybody's eyes, I get that but -

GINGRICH: I think he actually likes Trump.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

GINGRICH: I think there's a sense of -

INGRAHAM: What are the chances of Dennis Rodman really works for the CIA and has been running this whole deal, okay? What are the - no. All right, Ed Henry has an insight now on why this meeting may have been going on as long as it is.

Perhaps longer than was initially thought it would last, is that a good sign, Ed. What are your thoughts on that?

HENRY: Yes, it maybe , yes, I'll give you a little perspective, about 12-18 hours ago, we were dealing with the end of the first day of this summit and they had a dinner. And President Trump before the dinner said that he and Chairman Kim are going to have a very quick meal, that's the way he said.

He said most of the business will get done on day two, just the opposite happened, the dinner lasted for some two hours or more just here last night in Hanoi so that gives you an idea of the warm feelings, the length to which they're spending a lot more time behind closed doors perhaps than they did in Singapore in Round 1.

And the second point I'd make, you're talking about what Newt was just saying about the warmth, you can kind of see in the body language that Chairman Kim has towards President Trump. Something else happened about an hour or so ago, an American reporter from The Washington Post asked the question of Chairman Kim.

He ignored questions yesterday. Today he answered it. He was asked about his feelings here and Chairman Kim said, I have - I don't want to overdo it but I have a good feeling that there will be positive results, Chairman Kim said. Not revolutionary in substance but a, he's optimistic and b, this dictator who we believe is the first time ever he has taken a question from a reporter. He is now opening himself -- it's only slightly. He is still a dictator. There's still gulags in North Korea. Let's not give him too much credit. But the point is, I think as your panel is laying out, this personal relationship that's being developed could be real important, Laura.

INGRAHAM: Ed, thank you so much. Panel, stay right there. In just moment, the president and Kim Jong-un, we understand, are going to speak to the media. We are going to bring that to -- I can't even believe this is happening -- as soon as it does happen. And, yes, we have dissection of what Michael Cohen said today. The left is going nuts. They think finally got the Road Runner. They're Wile e. Coyote, he's the Road Runner. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: We are still awaiting President Trump's and Chairman Kim's address to the press. This is wild. You won't want to miss it. We're going to bring it to you in just moment. But back with me is David Morey and Walid Phares, also joining the conversation, Monica Crowley, "Washington Times" senior columnist, and Lieutenant Colonel Danny Davis live in Hanoi. All right, everybody, Monica, get your thought on something. We see a lot of former foreign policy establishment types speaking out today, and in recent days, about this Trump summit, second summit with a Kim. Hillary Clinton spoke out, and I want to share it with you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON, D-FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't see a deal there that is a verifiable, enforceable deal. I don't know what Trump will claim. If he can put lipstick on a pig and he can say OK, this is what we are going to do with North Korea, and he keeps saying it over and over, and FOX News say it over and over again, and other outlets say it over and over again, and the so-called mainstream media does there both-sides-ism thing, well, he said this, but somebody else said that.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He wins the news cycle.

CLINTON: He wins the news cycle. That's really what he lives for.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Monica, so Trump is all the way over there in Vietnam to win the news cycle. I heard a number of people saying that today.

MONICA CROWLEY, COLUMNIST, "THE WASHINGTON TIMES": The foreign policy establishment in New York and Washington and elsewhere are pulling their hair out because Donald Trump is actually pulling off something quite extraordinary on the other side of the world. Mrs. Clinton's remarks there are, again, sore-loser-dom. Donald Trump is president and she is now, so of course she is going to down talk anything that he does, including this most extraordinary achievement.

Laura, I worked for President Nixon during the last years of his life, and what we are seeing recalls to me a really interesting and important historical analogy. Richard Nixon in 1967 wrote a famous piece for "Foreign Affairs" where he articulated his vision of the opening to China. That opening did not take place until 1972. It took five years to lay the groundwork for that historic opening where Nixon brought in China out of isolation into the community of nations.

Donald Trump is doing a similar thing here. This is really earth shattering. On top of it now you've got the calculation of nuclear weapons and the possibility of at least moving toward denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula. This is huge. He will never get any credit from his critics, including first and foremost, Mrs. Clinton. But that doesn't mean that the reality is lost on the American people. It is not.

INGRAHAM: Again, in just a few moments we understand they will be coming out to speak to the press, so keep it right here. Colonel Davis, I want to go to you, because you are in Hanoi. The rich history of the region, Hanoi is a different place, anyone has had a chance to go there, staying at the Metropole Hotel, it is just a wild and completely transformed place in so many ways. But the American historical connection to Vietnam, and the whole region, the men we lost in the Vietnam and Korean War, and today, we have Democrats speaking out about how this is still kind of disastrous for us. This is nothing good. Chuck Schumer spoke out as well about this. I want to play this and get your reaction. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-N.Y., MINORITY LEADER: President Trump seems headed down the path of capitulation on both North Korea and China, prepared to trade away our leverage in exchange for flimsy agreements. President Trump seems more interested in touting his warm relationship with Chairman Kim as an accomplishment in and of itself. Calling a brutal autocrat of friend on Twitter is no substitute for actually achieving something for the American people in Hanoi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Colonel Davis, it is capitulation that the president has demonstrated towards China with the tariffs, and towards North Korea with the ongoing sanctions?

LT. COL. DANIEL DAVIS, FORMER U.S. ADVISER TO KOREAN ARMY: I think it is really unfortunate that he used the language that he did because the fact is, kind of playing off what Monica said a second ago, only Nixon could go to China in 1972. I think only Trump can go to Vietnam right now and have the opportunity for a pretty substantial move towards peace, something that none of the previous 11 presidents have even come close to.

And the fact that President Trump is willing to take the risk to achieve peace I think is really noteworthy. And really also to kind of contradict what was just said there, if you don't take some risk, or if you are not willing to give something, then you are not going to be able to get something as substantial as the potential for peace and denuclearization on the peninsula. And President Trump is willing to do that.

INGRAHAM: David, do we know if Kim speaks -- he speaks English, right?

DAVID MOREY, FORMER ADVISER TO BARACK OBAMA: He speaks some English.

INGRAHAM: Does he speak well?

MOREY: More than he lets on.

INGRAHAM: But to him it would be a sign of his own capitulation to engage in much English.

MOREY: He would rather hold that card close to the vest. He was educated in Switzerland.

INGRAHAM: then he would be doing a knock-knock joke or something, then it would be really cool. I want to play for you part of the evolution of Trump from Rocket Man to today. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: He has been very threatening, beyond a normal statement. And as I said, they will be met with fire, fury, and, frankly, power, the likes of which this world has never seen before.

We made a lot of progress, and I think the biggest progress was our relationship. It is really a good one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Fire, fury, and power, kind of the superhero lingo. Who knows, but Kim might be a superhero fan.

MOREY: Yes. The Nixon crazy man theory, if you think your adversary is crazy you are probably going to take him seriously. So that may have happened here. I only just want to give caution. We have a long way to go here, it's a long road to Tipperary. But it looks like the optics, the fact that the report that there is no inventory happening looks like it's wrong is really good news. And now it's going to be a long game. This is not a sprinter's game, so it's not going to be a quick --

INGRAHAM: No, they're not going to come out, like, OK, I'm going to come to Mar-a-Lago next week and then we are going to iron out all the details. It is never going to happen that way.

Walid, when you think about what was happening in Washington today, Michael Cohen, he says he comes clean, he asks for forgiveness, I lied but I'm not a liar, one of the greatest lines of all time. That's like Clintonian, I lied but I'm not a liar. They are all going crazy over it, and then you have this unbelievable event taking place on the world stage, that the world is watching. They are not watching Cohen. They are watching this, though, because it affects, as David said, global markets. Global markets are affected. Billions of dollars in portfolios are affected by what happens here.

WALID PHARES, FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: The world is focusing on Hanoi, not on the hearing. That is clear. Historians will confirm this. My view is that Kim by himself is sending a strong message to his people, his facial expression. He's trying to calm down his people, his military, and telling them we are changing. The only difference is that their speed is going to be different from our expected speed. They have been anti- western, anti-American for seven decades, and now slowly but surely showing his base that I am changing, but it will be our speed.

INGRAHAM: Monica, the respect, the idea of giving respect to a dictator, it gets your back up as an American. You don't want to respect them, you can't respect them. But just like when we were dealing with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, a great global power, or dealing with China today, North Korea is a shell of an economy. But still, the people have pride. So I think Trump in his own way is like, you have to show them some modicum of response, even with the torture, everything with everything, in order that he doesn't lose face at home with his military establishment as Walid and David alluded to, and with the people at large. Is that a fair way to characterize this?

CROWLEY: Yes, absolutely. And I think the president does know what he is doing here. The granting of respect to Kim on a very professional and geopolitical level actually disarms the dictator and makes him more receptive to the message.

The president here is dealing on a number of different levels, geopolitical of course, and economic. He comes from a business background, so the president looks through most things through a transactional lens. And what he is trying to appeal to, to Chairman Kim, is the idea that the North Korean state could -- if it had the proper economic liberalization with economic reform supported by the United States, if they were to go down the path of actual, verifiable denuclearization, that North Korea could actually be a thriving economy and a thriving nation in the community of nations.

So, he is appealing not just to Kim as a leader, but he is also appealing to Kim as a person, and as somebody who might be able to actually deliver for his people, if that is in Kim's interest. That is what the president is trying to set this framework. It remains to be seen if an ideologue like Chairman Kim will respond to that, but based on what we have seen so far, Laura, the president has already deescalated tensions with this outlawed trials of Asia, and that in and of itself is a huge achievement.

INGRAHAM: This conversation that we have had over the past 45 minutes is significant in many ways. We've talked about the China angle, we've talked about the Cohen conflagration here. We've talked about the impact on the rest of the globe, not just the Korean Peninsula or South China Sea. This is the entire global marketplace. This has a profound impact on it. Panel, thank you for your contributions, really important.

And we're going to continue to monitor the developments. Again, any moment, I know I keep saying that, but any moment they are going to come out live, you don't want to miss a moment of that. But we also want to get to this. Of course, Cohen testifying publicly for the first time about his relationship with the president. Former Oversight Chair Jason Chaffetz and the two congressmen who were in the room questioning Cohen join me next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: We've got some breaking news out of that summit. The two leaders are running about an hour behind schedule, but we are expecting them to emerge at any moment. We are going to bring you that as soon as it comes out. It's going to be a blockbuster, I promise you. If the precursor was anything indicative of what we are going to see.

And of course the other big news today happened right behind me on Capitol Hill where Michael Cohen, Trump's longtime attorney and convicted, of course, liar, testified in front of the House Oversight Committee and tried to play the victim. Joining me now, two of the congressmen who question to Cohen today, Paul Gosar and James Comer. Also with me, the former chair of the House Oversight Committee, Jason Chaffetz. Gentlemen, it is great to see all of you. I want to play a back-and-forth between Meadows, Congressman Meadows, and Elijah Cummings. It gives everybody a sense of how wild this was. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. RASHIDA TLAIB, D-MICH.: The fact that someone would actually use a prop, a black woman in this chamber, in this committee, is alone racist in itself.

REP. MARK MEADOWS, R-N.C.: Mr. Chairman, there's nothing more personal to me that my relationship -- my nieces and nephews are people of color. Not many people know that. You know that, Mr. Chairman. And to indicate that I asked someone who is a personal friend of the Trump family, who has worked for him, who knows this particular individual, that she is coming into be a prop, it's racist to suggest that I asked her to come in here for that reason.

REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS, D-MD: Mr. Meadows, you know, and of all the people on this committee, I've said it and got in trouble for it, that you are one of my best friends. I know that shocks a lot of people.

MEADOWS: And likewise, Mr. Chairman.

CUMMINGS: Yes, but you are. And I could see and feel your pain. We need to straighten this out.

TLAIB: Mr. Chairman, and to my colleague, Mr. Meadows, that was not my intention, and I do apologize if that is what it sounded like, but I said someone, in general.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: OK, so the backstory on this was Lynne Patton, who worked for President Trump, had been brought to the hearing by Congressman Meadows, and it was called a racist move to allow a young woman to come, and obviously she knows the president really well. We'll start with you, Congressman Comer. Thank you for being here. To go back for a second, are you calling me a racist, like Cummings to Meadows. This is what we have gotten to. We've got the president of the United States about to come out with the North Korean leader and we have this spectacle on Capitol Hill because of the jilted lover, Michael Cohen, is all upset?

REP. JAMES COMER, R-KY: It was a bad day for the Democrat Party. Speaker Pelosi obviously cannot keep her freshman members in line. She cannot keep them on script. The purpose of that whole committee was to begin the process of trying to impeach the president to please the most liberal part of the Democrat base, and it just didn't end well for the Democrats.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Gosar, people watching this across the country, we were at a restaurant for lunch, and people walking by, kind of look out for a second, then they just move on. I'm not saying it's not important, because the Democrats think they are finally going to get Trump, but what did you take away from all of this? Were you concerned? He was talking about the Southern District of New York, he brought up, well, there are other crimes, but I can't talk about them?

REP. PAUL GOSAR, R-AZ: It was a sad day. This is a pathological liar brought in front of Congress as the first witness for this hearing. It just shows you how far Democrats have gone. I hope that they realize that they should love this country more than they hate Donald Trump.

INGRAHAM: I don't -- that is not even close. Congressman Chaffetz, you know the moment I'm talking about. Can we play it, guys? This is where he was asked about whether he knows of any crimes of the president committed. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL COHEN, FORMER TRUMP ATTORNEY: Unfortunately, this topic is actually something that is being investigated right now by the Southern District of New York, and I've been asked by them not to discuss it, not to talk about these issues.

Those are part of the investigation that is currently being looked at by the Southern District of New York.

I am currently working with them right now on several other issues.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: You get the sense, Congressman Chaffetz, that that was Cohen's way of tweaking Trump when he is over there in Vietnam trying to negotiate, perhaps, a peace deal here. Your thoughts?

JASON CHAFFETZ, R-UT, FORMER CONGRESSMAN: I think what the country and Congress got to see is what Mueller saw, and that is a self-described fool. They didn't save Cohen to testify against somebody else. The Southern District of New York is not going to use him to testify to somebody else. He's terribly discredited, he is a liar, he is a cheat, he deserves to go to prison, he is going to prison. He was a terrible witness. I don't think the Democrats actually proved or demonstrated anything other than that he is a liar and a cheat.

But the one thing that actually came out where Cohen has been consistent is he said I have not witnessed anything personally in 10 years sitting by Donald Trump that has to do with collusion. He didn't have anything specific about the allegation of racism or any of the other things. At the end of the day, I think the Democrats are left empty-handed, other than parading somebody, and choosing a data that's offensive to this country in trying to displace the news, and the pinning of what Donald Trump is trying to do and accomplish in Vietnam.

INGRAHAM: Congressman Comer, Judge Napolitano on this network said what he watched made him think that there could be four felonies committed by the president. Do you see any of that?

COMER: I don't see any of that. They haven't proven to me anything thus far that's a felony, much less an impeachable offense by the president. They obviously don't have anything with respect to collusion. I agree exactly with what Jason Chaffetz just said. They are trying to pivot. They always try to play the race card. They are going to try to do everything to embarrass the president. When you have a business empire the size of President Trump's, if you dig deep enough you're always going to find where you omitted something or didn't calculate something exactly right. The president is clearly, clearly in the right on all this.

INGRAHAM: All right, guys, thank you so much.

President Trump, Kim Jong-un will speak to the media very soon. We're going to bring you that moments away, when it happens, so stay right there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Moments away again, they will be coming out, Kim and President Trump after this historic summit. And tomorrow I'll be speaking at CPAC. Fox Nation is covering it live, so you get a free trial at Fox Nation, that's cool. A new podcast episode dropped today, another tomorrow, do not want to miss.

That's all the time we have tonight. Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team, take it from here.

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