When it comes to existential threats such as climate change, the United States cannot afford the kind of unforced errors that Donald Trump makes on a near-daily basis.

There are striking similarities between Trump’s response to the coronavirus outbreak and his administration’s refusal to take climate change seriously. In both cases, denial puts the public in harm’s way.

In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, warnings issued by scientists and public health officials about the risks posed by the virus fell on deaf ears in the Trump administration. Since then the White House has prevented the government’s own experts from talking candidly to the public, and Trump’s refusal to accept bad news about the pandemic has hindered government efforts to gather the data needed to craft an effective response--it's a hear, see, speak no COVID approach.

Bulletin columnist Duyeon Kim, who is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, is in Seoul after covering the meeting of Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un at the demilitarized zone separating the two Koreas. In this exchange with Bulletin editor in chief John Mecklin, she answers four key questions arising from the Great Handshake.

The much-anticipated summit in Helsinki is over and US media and politicians are fuming over Trump’s admiration of the persuasive skills of President Putin. Even though Trump’s performance during the press conference may have played to the Russian side, it is unlikely major Russian goals for the summit centered on making the US president look … Continued

If Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un meet—as of now this is still a big “if,” although North Korea has now confirmed its willingness to meet directly—the summit could be an important ice breaker and open up a chance to resolve the North Korean nuclear crisis and bring peace to the Korean peninsula. But success, however remote it may seem, will require new thinking and entail major risks. It will also require a plan.

Let facts be submitted to a candid world, that its citizens may hold Donald J. Trump to account, in the courts of public opinion and relentless satire, for the endangerment of humanity:

The nonproliferation complex today should adjust to President Trump and provide him all possible expert support. As an “idiot savant” of nuclear policy, he will surely accept it.

It’s hard not to see how Donald Trump’s campaign has resonated “in regions of the country that have not only failed to benefit economically from innovation, but have been harmed by it.”

In an unprecedented turn, FBI agents seized 11 caches of classified documents—some of them at extremely high levels of classification—from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. A federal court unsealed a search warrant and related documents on Friday indicating that the search of Mar-a-Lago was predicated on the possibility that three laws had been violated: the Espionage Act; a statute that prohibits the unauthorized taking or destruction of government records; and an obstruction of justice law.

The treaty has been indisputably effective at reducing nuclear risk, but the Trump administration may let it expire in 2021.

An impending US decision on whether to effectively end its participation in the Iran nuclear deal dominated the world media stage Monday, and President Trump heightened the drama by tweeting that he would make his decision Tuesday, rather than wait for a May 12 deadline.

North Korea’s Kim Jong-un talked with South Korean envoys, and Trump has agreed to meet him. What should we make of the messages from Pyongyang?

Under Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, some public lands may see new coal mining while others may shrink.

One hopes that President Trump will not want to show off his “great” nuclear weapons as much as he wanted to share his “great intel.”