The long-anticipated, on-again/off-again/on-again summit with North Korea in Singapore. Here, President Trump and Kim Jong-un of North Korea will sit down and see if they can actually come to some agreement regarding the nuclear weapons status of the North. Past administrations, from Clinton to Bush to Obama, have utterly failed to halt—or even slow—the North’s efforts at developing nuclear weapons. The prospect of nuclear weapons in the hands of an unpredictable, unstable regime like Kim Jong-un’s will radically change the balance of power in the Pacific Rim, and it has worldwide implications since cash-strapped North Korea is likely to sell its nuclear technology to rogue nations across the globe.

Past efforts at curbing other nations’ nuclear ambitions have proven vexing indeed. Pakistan and India have them, Iran is very close (mostly because of the amateurish and insincere efforts of the Obama administration), and Israel has them. Saudi Arabia is thought to have the technical wherewithal should they begin development, as does Japan. Since 1945, keeping global nuclear ambitions under control is indeed like a genie that is frustratingly reluctant to stay in his bottle.

Current-day Democrats have consistently shown little genuine interest in international or national security issues, except as those issues impact and affect their political fortunes. The Pelosi’s, Waters, and Schumers of the world are not really concerned about North Korea’s or Iran’s nuclear ambitions or illegal immigration unless they can somehow leverage those issues into making Republicans look bad and thus bolster their electoral fortunes.

So it is now with Kim Jong-un and the Singapore summit. All of a sudden, Senate Democrats—after complete silence on the matter—have issued a “checklist ” of requirements and demands for President Trump to accomplish at the summit. It’s such a transparent political ploy: Fabricate arbitrary, difficult-to-achieve, difficult-to-verify “goals,” and then when (in their view, in the immediate aftermath of the summit) their “goals” haven’t been met, issue a very public “Aha! He failed!” statement.

The Democrats issuing a checklist for the North Korean summit is laughable–like the Democrats actually care about national security, N. Korea, or anything along those lines at all. With each succeeding Democratic administration since Kennedy in 1960—LBJ, Carter, Clinton, Obama—the Democratic Party has oriented more and more of its policy objectives towards domestic issues, with an ever-increasing emphasis on pure electoral success, abject media manipulation, and demonizing their political opposition. 

Considering the Obama administration’s near-total shunning of international considerations—from abandoning American personnel at Benghazi to declaring war on terrorism is “over,” to allowing Russia to simply annex part of Ukraine without penalty to failing to keep Assad accountable for stepping over the ‘red line,’ to undercutting Israel at every turn to gifting $150 billion to Iran while allowing them to keep their nuclear program—modern-day Democrats have summarily rejected national security/foreign policy issues in favor of concentrating on domestic identity politics: Identify a particular interest “victim” group (blacks, women, LGBT, Hispanics, environmentalists, etc.), then craft a tax-funded Government policy to solve their problem (in other words, buy their votes), all the while enlisting the liberal mainstream media to do their bidding for them. That is the modus operandi of today’s Democratic Party.

Now, all of a sudden, we’re to believe that Chuck Schumer and his cohorts suddenly have a deep and abiding interest in the national security interests of the United States and its foreign policy strategy. This is so transparent it’s even obvious to the most casual observers: The Democrats want to set a political “Gotcha!” trap for President Trump while keeping themselves perfectly inoculated from any judgment or accountability themselves. So they produce a highly publicized, serious-sounding letter. Quite clever on their part.

Here’s what President Trump should do: He should take Senator Schumer along with him to the summit. He should very publicly state that he appreciates Schumer’s evident expertise and deep, thoughtful analysis of the situation, and he’d welcome his invaluable assistance in the negotiations.

It’s a win-win for Trump: If Schumer is there and the negotiations fail to achieve any meaningful results, Schumer doesn’t get to criticize from afar, unaccountable, since he was there and part of the process. Part of whatever blame is assigned will be his and the Democrats’.

If the summit is a smashing success, Trump gets to thank Schumer for his help. He says that America has achieved a great thing for global peace and stability by coming together, Republicans and Democrats, and showing the world what can be accomplished when “We reach across the aisle in pursuit of goals bigger than small-time partisan politics.”

Regardless of the outcome, if Schumer is there, Trump wins.

There would be few things in life more priceless than the expression on Chuck Schumer’s face as he boards the plane for Singapore.