Han Dong-hoon, "What's important now is to practice with speed."

■ Host: Kim Sun-young Anchor
■ Appearance: Kim Jin, former Editorial Writer at JoongAng Ilbo, Choi Chang-ryul, Special Professor at Yongin University

* The text below may differ from the actual broadcast content, so please check the broadcast for more accurate information. Please specify [YTN NewsNOW] when quoting.

[Anchor]
Political commentary with a living angle, let's start at the minute. Kim Jin, a former editor-in-chief of the JoongAng Ilbo, and Choi Chang-ryul, a special professor at Yongin University, are here. Welcome. Let's look at the first keyword video.

First of all, President Yoon Suk Yeol responded to representative Han Dong-hoon's request. I was wondering how CEO Han Dong-hoon would have scored in his heart. I've been silent yesterday and posted on social media this morning. Let me introduce what it's about first.

Now, what is important is to practice it at a level that meets the public sentiment and specifically at a speed. The practice should be at a level appropriate to the public sentiment, be specific, and have a sense of speed. I wrote it like this. In order to live up to the public sentiment, the party will follow the public sentiment more than now and communicate and persuade the presidential office more than now. This is what it contains.

He also said that he would immediately proceed with the process of appointing a special inspector, which the president said he would do nothing if he did not go with the public sentiment. We should all be more humble and humble in front of our people. CEO Han Dong-hoon posted this article this morning. There was also a prospect that I would continue to be silent, but first of all, I posted it on social media. Do you think it's a positive response? Do you think it's a negative reaction?

[Kim Jin]
It's a pretty positive response. There was also an evaluation that the president promised most of the issues he asked for. And if you look at CEO Han Dong-hoon's remarks, it means that he will now monitor and watch the future of implementing measures rather than raising the issue of the past. That's why CEO Han Dong-hoon seems to have decided in his mind that he will oppose the Kim Gun-hee Special Prosecutor Act. The independent counsel law is a matter of the past. Instead, we will emphasize the corresponding special inspector system and wait because the president said he would change personnel. First lady Kim Gun-hee's suspension of external activities is almost a form of accepting almost all of them. So, if you look at representative Han Dong-hoon's reaction like that, you judge the president's press conference quite positively.

[Anchor]
However, if you are going to give a positive answer, you should have done it right away yesterday. Why did you wait until this morning, and the silence for such a long time itself expressed dissatisfaction. I think there's also a view like this.

[Choi Chang Ryul]
I think CEO Han Dong-hoon's reaction is a principled reaction. You have to do it according to the public sentiment. It means you have to be speedy and specific.

[Anchor]
Still, apologizing is positive, is this what it is?

[Choi Chang Ryul]
I'm sure it is. Even objectively, he apologized several times yesterday or 12 times. I think it's a positive evaluation. But it came out in a day. Anyway, if CEO Han Dong-hoon thought that he really accepted what he said, he would have reacted yesterday. However, even though the stories were changed, Trump was elected in various ways, and he said he would watch and be flexible.

Actually, he said he'd make a personnel shakeup.Ma doesn't do it immediately and entirely. The reason why I'm telling you this is that if your approval rating is so low right now, public sentiment is bad, and public opinion is high for Kim Gun-hee's independent counsel is high, it should be more surprising. I'll evaluate your apology several times yesterday, but it's generally possible to talk about personnel reform. So that's true in other times, but it's a very unusual situation right now. However, since this is the same content as usual, I think it was judged that there was a relatively large lack of serious awareness of this situation.

[Anchor]
In terms of scores, how many points do you think CEO Han Dong-hoon gave?

[Choi Chang Ryul]
Regarding yesterday's press conference, CEO Han Dong-hoon said, "There is no way to know what's inside of others, but I don't think it was up to eight points." It's a very careful reaction. As the leader of the ruling party, it will be hard to say anything more. But why didn't you get an independent counsel? It's going to be hard as CEO Han Dong-hoon. As CEO Han Dong-hoon, I think he made the most of his remarks, but he didn't respond so positively.

[Anchor]
There are reactions from within the party to the president's press conference yesterday. Let's hear what's being said.

There are also conflicting views within the party. Five demands. How much did the president of Yoon Suk Yeol listen to? Here's what the political department's judgment is like. 5 requests, apples are circled. First of all, I apologized, but there are comments that the concreteness is poor. Regarding personnel reshuffle, first of all, a positive answer. The suspension of activities is triangular. That's because there are parts that have left open the possibilities in the future.

Isn't the appointment of a special inspector a theoretical answer? It's true that there's this kind of perspective. I've declared a change in the state of affairs, but I think we'll have to wait and see about this in the future. We've done some circles and triangles. Do you agree?

[Kim Jin]
I generally agree, but the interruption is not a triangle, but a square between a circle and a triangle. You made an announcement today in the Presidential Office that you will not accompany your wife to the APEC meeting in Peru and the G20 meeting in Brazil next week. The fact that your wife will not accompany you on those two important overseas schedules means that you will stop all foreign activities except for some of the extremely important diplomatic schedules such as President Trump's visit to Korea. So I think the square is better than the triangle. The change in state administration is controversial.

It is true that President Yoon has made some mistakes and trials and errors, but the four reforms plus one and medical reforms. And there are many people who do not understand the argument of what, how, and why the government should change its stance in an important way that they are pushing hard for various state affairs such as diplomacy, security, defense, defense, nuclear power plants, etc. The president should make mistakes and trials and errors personally and with his wife, but what is wrong with the state administration in general? In the past, there was a lack of communication, but yesterday, he showed his own willingness to change at the press conference and evaluated five items.

[Anchor]
Anyway, isn't there something ambiguous about the suspension of Kim Gun-hee's activities? Close circles should see if they go on a trip together this month. I also expressed this position, but the presidential office's position came out today. First lady Kim Gun-hee has decided not to accompany the president of Yoon Suk Yeol scheduled for this month.

[Choi Chang Ryul]
When I talked about it at the press conference, I actually stopped it, so I said it yesterday. Anyway, the decision not to accompany the important APEC summit immediately, the G20 to be held afterwards, is a strong will to implement it in its own way. It's embodied. From this perspective, you can evaluate it. So it's more advanced than what the president said yesterday, since he announced it. I think it can be evaluated in its own way. I don't know if he will say it later, but the most important thing to watch at yesterday's press conference is his attitude, thoughts and perceptions toward the independent counsel Kim Gun-hee. Second, what did you talk to Myung Taekyun on the phone? Since there was a voice who spoke directly with the president. That and Mrs. Kim Gunhee. Anyway, this is my message.communication by text messages I think two points to watch are whether the public gives an explanation that is convincing.

We talked about a lot of things for 140 minutes yesterday. There can be a lot of mixed reviews. I think it was insufficient from the perspective of those two things. I told you that I evaluated everything else. There's something that I've taken a step forward in my own way. Nevertheless, yesterday, of course, the president's opinion was completely different regarding the special prosecution of First Lady Kim Gun-hee, which is the most problematic right now. From that point of view, the decision to suspend external activities is materialized, so I think it is necessary to evaluate it first because it was announced today rather than yesterday.

[Anchor]
Regarding mobile phones, which have been at the center of various controversies, the president and his wife have decided to replace them in the presidential office. A high-ranking official in the presidential office also told reporters about this. Should I say that I will thoroughly manage such areas in the future?

[Kim Jin]
It'll disappear a lot. And there are a lot of people who know the cell phone numbers of the president and the lady. There are a lot around me, too. So after he was elected president, or even just before that, he should have changed their mobile numbers. And isn't it that Mrs. Kim Gun-hee received about 3,000 texts to the president's phone number, which was released when President Yoon joined the people's power? The President did not answer that. And it's right not to answer. Ordinary citizens texted the presidential candidate when they saw the phone number. It is wrong in itself for the presidential runner to answer the texts to those ordinary people.

Where is the time for that and the people who receive the text will think like this. I don't have time for the presidential candidate. I would have received thousands of these texts, but the presidential candidate sent me these texts because he doubted me to send them. Rather than diminishing it, politics, systems, or mechanisms never work like that. That's where Mrs. Kim Gun-hee's problem comes from. What the president said at a public press conference about his wife's naivety is that's the problem. Thank you for answering a significant number of the 3000 texts by 5am, I will work hard. I would've done it like this, right?

I don't know that I shouldn't do it, and I don't know that doing it has the opposite effect. Until 5 a.m., your wife did that by her bedside. Is the president up and crazy? Are you crazy with this comfortable conversation between your husband and wife? If you think about the situation of talking like this, we can see Kim Gun-hee's style and personality well. He is a very innocent man. Moreover, if you look at the transcript wave with Seoul's Sound, you are ideologically quite defenseless and very naive about the mechanisms of politics. It was a lot of trial and error that followed these things. So changing your phone will have a significant effect.

[Anchor] Regarding the
episode, Kim Jin also described it as innocent, but the expression itself was controversial.

[Choi Chang Ryul]
I didn't change the cell phone number that the president said yesterday, so I didn't follow the protocol like the previous presidents, and that was the problem. Looking at that, did the president still not understand the core and issues of the problem? That's not what's important right now, but it's because there were suspicions that the various communications I had with Myung Tae-kyun seemed to have intervened in state affairs and intervened in the nomination process. And if you take the story at face value, it wouldn't have been revealed if you hadn't changed your phone, but it's a shame, you can interpret it like this. So, I understand what the president said, but I think it's a separate matter from what many people were curious about at yesterday's press conference. So I think that the prescription is not very accurate either.

[Anchor]
On Friday when I meet the two of you like this, the Gallup poll approval rating will be announced without fail. 20% of the walls were broken last week, so how did the results come out today? Let's see. We've told you before. Let me show you again.

Gallup Poll for President Yoon Suk Yeol's Job Performance Evaluation. The positivity has dropped a little more than last week. It went down by 2 percentage points to 17%, the lowest since taking office. Let's see the reason for the job performance evaluation. Diplomacy is the highest in positivity, and Kim Gun-hee is the highest in negativity, just like last week, followed by the economy.

Let's look at it by region this time. Last week, TK's approval rating fell quite a lot, and we analyzed that TK rose slightly this week. The places that stand out are Chungcheong and Seoul. Seoul fell by 5 percentage points. Chungcheong Province dropped 11% and double digits.

It is also of interest to see how the party's approval rating goes with the president's approval rating. The public's approval rating was tied with that of the Democratic Party last week. It dropped a little this week. You can see that the gap with the Democratic Party has widened. From the point of view, yesterday's press conference for the president of Yoon Suk Yeol did not seem to be reflected much. I think it is a poll that properly reflects the scandal over Myung Tae-kyun's transcript, but it fell further as Kim Jin predicted.

[Kim Jin]
Of course. Because a week ago, the scandal over the recordings of Myung Tae-kyun was not reflected. It was reflected very well. The press conference yesterday to apologize to the public was hardly reflected. So, in my careful judgment, didn't you hit the bottom? And yesterday's public apology press conference will stop the departure of key supporters. Then there is a possibility that it will rise further in Daegu and North Gyeongsang Province. If the effect of the public press conference is reflected and Kim Gun-hee does not go on an overseas trip is permeated into public opinion, the results of the polls will be different a week later, and more clearly, the president has found momentum for a rebound.

[Anchor]
You predicted that the press conference will work positively in next week's survey. Unlike last week, the party's approval rating has fallen together. How do you see this?

[Choi Chang Ryul]
CEO Han Dong-hoon's stance asked for three things at first and then asked for five. The contents are similar, but two more have been added, such as the president's apology and Cabinet personnel reform. It's a staff reshuffle. I can't speak out in the party anymore. The special inspector's story has already been reflected. That's why people who are disappointed with the president have no hope in the power of the people. Maybe that's why I fell further. So, CEO Han Donghoon talked about it earlier.Ma would be in a very vague position. It's really ambiguous to talk about the special prosecutor, and as soon as I say why I didn't get a special prosecutor here, I think there will be a departure from the so-called core support group. You can't even defend the president like that. This is the situation. So, it seems that the approval rating of the people's power has fallen because such an opinion came out earlier in a very ambiguous situation.

[Anchor]
If there is anything prepared for the next leader of the ruling and opposition parties, it would be good to show them. If you look at the approval rating of the next leader, it is a recent survey of future political leadership preferences. Representative Lee Jae-myung is in the order of 29, representative Han Dong-hoon is in the order of 14, motherland, and Hong Joon Pyo. From CEO Han Dong-hoon's point of view, such a poll will be a considerable personal struggle. Anyway, at a time when the gap with Representative Lee Jae-myung is widening considerably, we have to lead the relationship between the party and the government while revealing something differentiated from President Yoon Suk Yeol. Which route do you think I should take?

[Kim Jin]
When representative Han Dong-hoon was chairman of the emergency committee for the general election, some surveys showed that he was ahead of representative Lee Jae-myung. Didn't it fall in half from the boiling two-river system at the time? I believe that a significant number of reasons for the fall are the departure of the conservatives. Because of the conflict with President Yoon Suk Yeol, criticism spread among the conservative core supporters that Han Dong-hoon was taking advantage of President Yoon's difficulties to conduct his own politics, which affected the decline in his approval rating. Representative Han Dong-hoon is holding up that approval rating in his own way by talking about public sentiment and public eye level. I think the main reason why representative Han Dong-hoon gave a positive assessment of the Yoon Suk Yeol presidential press conference is that if I go one step further in favor of the independent counsel law, I will be held responsible for the conservative division. Then, I think it's one of the ways to feel a sense of crisis that your approval rating could drop further.

[Anchor]
In addition to that voice, there are also strong voices calling for differentiation among the middle class, so CEO Han Dong-hoon's struggles are likely to deepen. Minister Yun Yeo-jun said this this morning regarding President Yoon Suk Yeol's approval rating. Let's listen to it.

If the approval rating is below 15 percent, it will be difficult. How persuasive do you think it is when you made this prediction that it will be difficult to pass next spring?

[Choi Chang Ryul]
If you go down by 15%, you'll lose power completely. It's less than half of his term, and if it's 15%, that's right. It's a question of whether to stop at 17%, stop and provide an opportunity for a rebound, or fall further, as Kim Jin said earlier. What I told you earlier was that Mrs. Kim Gun-hee decided not to follow me or not to accompany me, which is crucial. The suspension of activities was specifically indicated. The problem is that if the things we talked about, such as innovation, become concrete little by little, I think we will stop here. What if there's another conflict between the party and the government? Are you saying that the Democratic Party is going to release a recording of Myung Taekyun? If there's something I don't understand there, I think there's a possibility that the approval rating will fall further.

[Anchor]
Former Minister Yoon Yeo-jun's remarkable move recently met with Lee Jae-myung. He also said today that it is highly likely that Lee Jae-myung's judicial risk will not have a significant impact.

[Kim Jin]
Former Minister Yoon Yeo-jun was a Cheong Wa Dae spokesman during President Kim Young-sam. It was known that he had a very close network with the president's son, Kim Hyun-chul. When President Park Geun Hye was the party leader, he was the head of the general elections. Recently, he met with CEO Lee Jae-myung and talked about various pending issues. That much can be said by anyone, and one of the big problems of the conservative right is that those analyses of those figures are reported with their own political weight. There aren't many people like that in the Democratic Party. There aren't many such greetings on the left. There's a snooze here, there's a snooze here, back and forth, things like that, things like that. Whether he told President Yoon Suk Yeol about his painful story when he met with Representative Lee Jae-myung, and whether he publicly said his evaluation of Representative Lee Jae-myung. Basically, whether a key figure from the right has a mandatory affection for right-wing values, there are not many people in the Democratic Party and left-wing forces who take that kind of move. That's why the conservative right is always cowardly defeated.

[Anchor]
In any case, I think we can read what kind of lines Lee Jae-myung's meeting with former Minister Yoon Yeo-joon is based on. Recently, the suspicion of intervening in the nomination continues to grow. The key figure, Myung Tae-kyun, came out today. Let's take a look together. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. During today's prosecution appearance, Myung Tae-kyun said this when asked by reporters. Let's listen to it for ourselves.

I didn't get a single won. That's what I said. In short, the allegation is that Myung Tae-kyun conducted a poll in return for accepting the nomination of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun. I'm suspected of this. Later, he received the salary of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun and received tens of millions of won. They're being suspected like this. He denies the charges today, saying he didn't receive a single won.

[Choi Chang Ryul]
He said he didn't receive a won, and the prosecution is investigating him for violating the Political Fund Act. That's why I was summoned. It doesn't mean that he received 90 million won in exchange for the nomination of former lawmaker Kim Young-sun. That's what the prosecution suspects. That's why the prosecution says they paid Sebi together regularly, and the prosecution. Also, former lawmaker Kim Young-sun is saying that she gave money to Kang Hye-kyung without even realizing it. He says he has no idea, but I don't understand that either. How can an aide do that without the congressman's permission?

Not once or twice. From August 2022 to December last year, they gave it that way dozens of times. I don't understand what former lawmaker Kim Young-sun said. Everything like this should eventually turn out to be an investigation. As Myung Tae-kyun said, you can find out if you look at the account accurately. But if you look at Myung Tae-kyun's story, that's the person who threatened the president now. He said "Hey!" and he said it was a joke. That kind of person is lifting up and down the Republic of Korea. But now, the prosecution has summoned him.Ma is too slow to investigate.

The details of the phone call with First Lady Kim Gun-hee are all coming out when such a person talks like that, but we need to investigate quickly and reveal the truth. How can such a person do Korea like that? The prosecution really needs to transfer from Changwon District Prosecutors' Office to the Central District Prosecutors' Office or set up a special investigation team. What is Myung Tae-kyun doing to shake the country like that?

[Anchor]
Myung Tae-kyun, who even talked about haya, apologized to SNS just before the presidential press conference yesterday, and said sorry in front of reporters today. What do you think about the drastic change in tone?

[Kim Jin]
Looking at Myung Tae-kyun today, he is very nervous and anxious. According to his claim, he had surgery on both legs. So he went up the stairs limping with a cane on his right. And the youngest daughter is 5 or 6 years old, and she claims that she hasn't had any financial income for years. If it is true that half of lawmaker Kim Young-sun's salary was received, there was no economic income except for that.

Personally, I am in a very difficult situation and I am facing prosecution investigation, so anxiety and anxiety are all over my face and body. We're going to cover the second transcript of "Myeongtae Gyun" that the Democratic Party revealed.Since Ma is a behavior that is generally made in a very unstable state, Myung Tae-kyun's credibility is considerably reduced, and the fact that he didn't receive KRW 1 seems to say that he didn't receive KRW 1 of illegal funds, which is a violation of the Political Fund Act. That's the case when I judge.

[Anchor]
Regarding the suspicion of Myung Tae-kyun, the Democratic Party of Korea is raising its offensive level by focusing on the suspicion of intervening in the nomination of Kim Gun-hee. It seems that the movement is accelerating with regard to the special prosecutor. President Yoon Suk Yeol explained earlier about the special prosecution yesterday, but he criticized it very strongly. The Democratic Party of Korea is refuting it like this, isn't it brazen?

[Choi Chang Ryul]
Given yesterday's press conference objectively, you shouldn't have criticized the special prosecutor too hard. I should have said it in a vague way like other things, but I'm very confident about the special prosecutor. That is unconstitutional, political instigation. And it's a human rights violation because other people are bound to show up. First of all, I think the Democratic Party's argument has a point, and Park Young-soo's investigation team leader was the Yoon Suk Yeol prosecutor when Choi Soon-sil was manipulating state affairs at that time. How do you explain that?

I also told CEO Lee Jae-myung why he refused the special prosecution during the presidential election. Then I didn't talk about the special prosecutor at that time either, if the special prosecutor is unconstitutional. Is the U.S. law the same? That's not true. I think it was the most painful part for President Yoon yesterday. I think so. It would have been better if I did it in a vague way, but I said it very strongly. Kim Gun-hee's special prosecutor is the biggest issue right now. I think that's a painful part for the ruling party.

[Kim Jin]
The real purpose of President Yoon is that the independent counsel is a unique system in Korea that proceeds with such a grave violation of the separation of powers, so it should at least proceed inevitably with the impeachment of the president, such as Choi Soon-sil and Special Prosecutor Park Geun Hye, like the Special Prosecutor Kim Gun-hee Act. Of the 13 charges the opposition is talking about, 13 charges, what are the charges that require an independent counsel? I think that's why what the president is talking about as anti-constitutional political instigation is actually logical.

[Anchor]
In any case, we will see how public opinion works inside the special prosecutor Kim Gun-hee, which the Democratic Party continues to push with speed. They were Kim Jin, a former editor of the JoongAng Ilbo, and Choi Chang-ryul, a special professor at Yongin University. Thank you.