Donald Trump’s security forum is usually tasked with dealing with high-level foreign policy matters.
According to its website, the National Security Council (NSC) is the US President’s “principal forum for considering national security and foreign policy matters” with his advisors.
What wasn’t common knowledge until just yesterday is that they also make videos.
Really bloody terrible ones.
As a gift for Kim Jong-Un - the kind of gift you hope comes with a receipt you can take back to the store and trade for vouchers - the NSC produced a four-minute video lauding the potential of the historic summit between the two leaders’ countries, which took place on Tuesday.
Reminiscent of the opening of a post-apocalypse film showing humanity at its peak before being wiped out by plague, nuclear war or zombies, the film contains such illuminating insights into geo-political posturing as “the past doesn’t have to be the future” and “a new world can begin today”.
At times, the video speaks to Kim directly, suggesting he could make a choice that would open North Korea up to new investment and step into a starring role in a moment in history with Trump.
“Featuring President Donald Trump and Chairman Kim Jong Un, in a meeting to remake history, to shine in the sun,” the narrator says.
“One moment. One choice. What if?”
The credit on the video said it was produced by Destiny Pictures - which disrupted the morning of Mark Castaldo, who owns a Los Angeles-based production company with the same name, albeit with a different logo to the one in the video.
“We had nothing to do with that film,” Castaldo said in a telephone interview with Reuters, adding he had awoken to a deluge of calls and emails from journalists around the world. “Propaganda, all that stuff, that’s not something we’d get involved in.”
Trump and Kim reached a broad agreement that North Korea would move toward denuclearising the Korean peninsula, while the United States committed to providing security guarantees and suspending military exercises with long-time ally South Korea.
The video was created by the White House’s National Security Council to “help the president demonstrate the benefits of complete denuclearisation, and a vision of a peaceful and prosperous Korean Peninsula,” White House spokesman Garrett Marquis said.