House Speaker Nancy Pelosi applauded the President’s move to walk away from the negotiations with North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un, who she said was the real “winner” of the latest talks between him and the President.
President Donald Trump was in Hanoi, Vietnam for his second summit with Kim, who insisted that all U.S. sanctions on his regime be lifted, resulting in the talks ending with no joint agreement between their countries.
“What we want is denuclearization. They didn’t agree to it in the first meeting. They didn’t agree to it in the second meeting. They wanted lifting sanctions without denuclearization. I’m glad that the president walked away from that,” Pelosi said during her weekly news conference.
According to Trump, Kim offered to dismantle some nuclear sites, which was not enough for the U.S. At a news conference later in the day, Trump said “sometimes you have to walk. This was just one of those times.”
However, despite welcoming President Trump’s decision, Pelosi said that Kim was the one who benefited from the summit by being elevated on the world stage by the talks. She also expressed skepticism about Trump’s negotiating efforts with the North Korean dictator.
“The President is returning from Vietnam, from his meeting with Kim Jong-un. I guess it took two meetings for him to realize that Kim Jong-un is not on the level,” Pelosi pointed out. “He was a big winner, Kim Jong-un, in getting to sit face to face with the most powerful person in the world, the President of the United States. And really, it’s good that the President did not give him anything for the little that he was proposing.”
The House speaker did not fail to address as well Trump’s comments about Otto Warmbier, a U.S. student who died after being held and most likely tortured by North Korea for almost a year and a half. Trump said he believed Kim when he said he had no knowledge of the incident.
“He felt badly about it. He felt very badly,” Trump said. “He tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word. I don’t think that the top leadership knew about it. I don’t believe that he (Kim) would have allowed that to happen.”
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