On MSNBC’s Live with Velshi & Ruhle Friday, a staunch critic of Donald Trump credited him with a substantial diplomatic North Korean win.

Appearing on the program to promote his new book, Us vs. Them: the Failure of Globalism, Ian Bremmer not only awarded Trump the proverbial high five; the foreign policy expert and president of Eurasia Group asserted that only a biased observer could deny Trump’s victory.

Stephanie Ruhle breached the topic, saying, “Ian, I want to start with North Korea. Because it was you last week who said we’ve got to give President Trump credit for making the progress we have thus far.”

Bremmer affirmed:

“There’s no question that if it wasn’t for Trump, we don’t have this opening with the North Koreans.”

Last week, Bremmer praised The Donald for his impending meeting with Kim Jong-Un and maneuvering toward Korean peace, trumpeting on Twitter, “Trump, Xi, Moon and Kim together get my vote for the Nobel Peace Prize.”

The guest explained Trump’s advancement to Ruhle and her co-host:

“A lot of people are saying, ‘Oh, is it about his tweets? Is it about “fire and fury?”’ It’s not. It’s about him pressing the Chinese, it’s about him sitting down with Xi Jingping in Mar-a-Lago, doing that first summit, and saying if — ‘I got elected on the back of, you know, beating on the Chinese, and that’s what I’m prepared to do. Unless you help me on North Korea, I’m going to make it a priority.’ And the Chinese, who are less happy with the North Koreans, actually started really ramping up sanctions. 90% of North Korea’s economy is China. If it wasn’t for that implementation, we don’t get this movement, period.”

Ruhle asked why Obama was unsuccessful at making such headway with China, to which Bremmer replied, “It wasn’t a priority.”

The author heaped more praise, noting he has otherwise been a hefty critic of the President:

“But we have to give him credit. Look, as you know, I’ve been critical of President Trump probably 90% of the foreign policy decisions he’s made since he’s become president. Not the whole administration, but certainly stuff he said. But on this issue, on North Korea, the only way you say that Trump isn’t part of it is if you’re just a partisan, if you’re just being illogical. And that’s not – I mean, I understand that that’s good for eyeballs, but it’s not good for our country.”

If those in the media who despise the President would still honestly assess his periodic wins for the country, it seems to me, trust in the media would differ vastly from its current state.

Cudos to Ian Bremmer for calling a spade a spade. On both counts.