Pence worries North Korea will hijack the messaging around the Olympics

*Pence worries North Korea 🇰🇵 will ‘hijack the messaging around the Olympics’❗*

A major reason Vice President Pence will attend the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea next month: He is worried North Korea's Kim Jong Un will hijack the Olympics .

“He has grave concerns that Kim will hijack the messaging around the Olympics. The North Koreans have been master manipulators in the past,” a senior White House official told reporters aboard Air Force Two on Tuesday as the vice president returned to the United States from a trip to the Middle East. “It’s a murderous state.”

The official did not want to be identified, as he discussed the internal discussions. Pence plans to speak “truth on the world stage, which is the opposite of what the North Koreans do,” the official said.

“I think a lot of vice presidents in the past have gone ceremoniously to the Olympics, and that’s what they do and that’s great. They cut the ribbon. Check the box,” the official said. “We wouldn’t be making this trip if that’s what it was about.”

The official said the vice president and his staff were alarmed by news this week that South Koreans were dazzled by the arrival of Hyon Song Wol, a singer in North Korea's all-female Moranbong Band and a rising political star in Kim's regime. She led a seven-member delegation to inspect Olympic facilities in the South where the North's Samjiyon orchestra will play on its visit during the games next month. Twenty-two North Korean athletes will compete.