CNN "The Situation Room" - Transcript: Interview With Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey

Interview

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BLITZER: Good point.

Jim Sciutto and Will Ripley, guys, thank you very much.

Let's get some more on all of this.

Democratic Senator Ed Markey of Massachusetts is joining us. He is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

And, Senator, you say -- and I'm quoting you now -- "The loopholes in the agreement are big enough to fly nuclear missiles through" -- close quote.

But the Trump administration isn't presenting the results of this summit as the end deal. Do you believe, though it's a good first step in negotiations?

SEN. EDWARD MARKEY (D), MASSACHUSETTS: Well, you know, we encourage diplomacy. But then we have to look at what the diplomacy actually produced.

And so what clearly happened here is that Donald Trump fell for the Kim family playbook going back two generations, to his grandfather and then his father, in their negotiations with the United States. Each time, they do the same thing. They try to front-end all of the rewards for North Korea and delay on the concessions which are given to the United States and the rest of the world.

And then they cloud the entire process in ambiguity. So, that's what we have right now. They get the benefit of the curtailment of the joint military exercises between the South Koreans and the United States, with the president actually saying, these war games are provocative and expensive.

Well, we engaged in those activities for a reason, to serve as a deterrent to a reckless North Korean regime. That's why we do it. Yes, they are expensive. Yes, they are provocative. But it's because Kim was provocative, detonating nuclear weapons, shooting off ballistic missiles. That's why we're there. Kim has now pocketed that benefit.

And, secondarily, the Chinese are now saying that it's time to relieve the North Koreans of the sanctions, the economic sanctions that have driven North Korea to the table.

We have no definition of what denuclearization means. We have no access to their nuclear weapons or their ballistic missiles. We have no inventory, which the North Koreans are providing, of their nuclear weapons arsenal or where they are or where their production facilities are.

BLITZER: Right.

MARKEY: We have none of that. And so this is not a good deal. It's weak.

BLITZER: But, Senator, you remember where these two countries were not that long ago. When President Obama left office, he told the incoming president, this is the major threat facing the United States right now, a nuclear war with North Korea.

So, do you think this first meeting at least reduces the chances of that kind of war, where hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people could die?

MARKEY: Well, it's only going to reduce the chances if there is, in fact, a reduction and removal on a verifiable basis of the nuclear weapons program in North Korea.

BLITZER: But isn't it better to be talking right now than to be hurling insults? And they did stop all their nuclear tests back in November, their intercontinental ballistic missile tests back in November. They have released three American detainees.

Aren't those steps forward?

MARKEY: They are, but they are not the big steps we're looking for.

Kim already has thermonuclear weapons. He already has a massive ballistic missile program in place. He very recently was shooting ballistic missiles over Japan. So, this is something that still is unresolved by this agreement. It's right now all one-sided, all flowing towards North Korea, all flowing towards Kim.

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We don't have any definition now of what Kim is going to do, what the North Koreans are going to do. And the dangerous thing here is that China takes this as an excuse to relax the economic sanctions, which drove North Korea to the table.

So, we should actually insist that all of those economic sanctions stay on the books, that China not be allowed to relax them, so that we have maximum pressure for as long as it takes to, in fact, have a program which removes these nuclear weapons and their ballistic missiles. We don't have any of that right now.

BLITZER: One final question before I let you go, Senator. In the agreement, the North Koreans do promise to help work with the United States to recover all POW/MIA remains from the Korean War, including the immediate repatriation of those already identified.

I assume that's something you welcome. The families, I'm sure, will welcome that as well.

MARKEY: That is a wonderful thing for each and every one of those families. They deserve the final knowledge of what happened to their loved ones. That is absolutely a wonderful result.

But the central purpose of this negotiation is the nuclear weapons program, the ballistic missile program of North Korea. And, right now, it is shrouded in ambiguity, what the responsibilities of Kim and North Korea will be, because that's the existential threat to South Korea, to Japan, to Guam, and potentially to the United States.

And that issue has not been resolved.

BLITZER: Let's see where these negotiations head.

Thanks so much, Senator, for joining us.

MARKEY: You are welcome.

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