Trump: Summit still could happen June 12
President canceled meeting with Kim on Thursday.
WASHINGTON — A day after aborting a summit with North Korea’s leader, President Donald Trump sounded an optimistic note Friday about future negotiations, saying it is even possible that a meeting could take place June 12 as originally planned.
“We’ll see what happens. We are talking to them now,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House on Friday morning. “They very much want to do it. We’d like to do it.”
“It could even be the 12th,” he added, referring to the date next month that had been set for him to meet with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore.
The president’s comments marked a head-spinning reversal from 24 hours earlier, when the White House released a letter
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left “There to decide,” are still Sanders a few hours said. “If we’ll it takes be ready. place If on it takes June place 12th, on July 12th, we’ll be ready.”
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Trump administration officials were not surprised by the course of events and remain hopeful that the meet- ing between Trump and Kim will happen at some point. would “We be always twists knew and there turns leading up to this meeting on June 12,” Nauert said. “We never expected it to be easy, so none of this comes as a surprise to us.” Nauert said that Secre- tary of State Mike Pompeo, White House national secu- rity adviser John Bolton and others remain in close coordi- nation about a path forward. “So we hope that the meeting will go forward at some point,” Nauert said. “We weren’t getting the right signals previously, so hopefully we will in the future. But we didn’t want to go to a meeting just for the sake of going to a meeting. There had to be something to come out of it.” Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis echoed Trump’s optimism Friday while speaking to reporters before a meet- ing with Danish officials at the Pentagon. have got some, possibly some good news on the Korea summit, where it may, if our diplomats can pull it off, may have it back on even,” Mattis said. “Our president just sent out a note about that a few moments ago. That is a usual give and take, you know, of trying to put together big summits and stuff. The diplo- mats are still at work.” Mattis was also asked whether the U.S. military would increase military exer- cises after the summit cancellation. “We are not changing anything right now; it is steady as she goes,” he said. “The dip- lomats are in the lead and in charge, and we give them our best wishes to have a fruitful way forward.” Trump also took to Twitter Friday to knock Democrats, whom he said are “so obviously rooting against us in our negotiations with North Korea.”
In the tweet, the Republican president ticked off other grievances with Democratic leaders, saying they are also at odds with his agenda on fighting the MS-13 gang and tax cuts. “Dems have lost touch!” Trump asserted.
After Trump’s announcement Thursday that he was pulling the plug on his meeting with Kim, several prominent Democrats criticized his approach to North Korea.
House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., for example, called Trump’s letter to Kim relaying his decision “another demonstration of President Trump’s treating of critical negotiations as if they were just another real estate deal.”
“From the beginning to the present, the dealings with North Korea have been sophomoric and without strategic or tactical merit,” Hoyer said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, admonished the Trump administration during a hearing Thursday for the “lack of deep preparation” ahead of the summit.
“It’s pretty amazing that the administration might be shocked that North Korea is acting as North Korea might normally act,” he said.
Trump made no mention of North Korea during his address Friday to the graduating class of the Naval Academy, though he spoke of the importance of a strong military to ensure peace.