President Trump’s national security adviser was put on the defensive by CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday after Trump walked away from his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Vietnam without a denuclearization deal.
“There’s nothing new on the table. Nothing new that’s been achieved except for now there’s these major joint military exercises with South Korea which is what the North Koreans want. That’s achieved for them [North Korea]. What did the U.S. get,” Tapper pressed.
John Bolton, who also served as the United Nations ambassador under former President George W. Bush, touted the Trump administration’s effort on North Korea, saying Trump successfully defended the core interest of the U.S. in the Pacific region.
“You’re speaking in the terms of conventional diplomacy that, my goodness, ‘There’s no deal! How horrible!’ I would say it the other way. If you can’t get a good deal, and the president offered North Korea the best deal it could possibly get — no deal is better than a bad deal,” Bolton responded. “So the president’s decided to shake things up in north Korean diplomacy given the failure of the last three administrations to achieve the denuclearization of North Korea. He, obviously, thinks it’s worth trying. We’ll see now what comes next.”
“No, I think it was unquestionably a success for the United States because the president protected, defended American interests,” he added. “The possibility was there for North Korea to make a big deal with us, to do complete denuclearization in exchange for the potential for a very bright economic future.”
U.S. officials announced this week that it would halt planned military exercises with South Korea in the spring. North Korea has long viewed the exercises between the two allies as a demonstration of a threat against the Kim regime. Getting the U.S. to stop the exercises has been one of the major planks in negotiations between the two countries.
