White House counselor Kellyanne Conway disputed reports on Wednesday that President Trump has sidelined his national security adviser John Bolton ahead of next week’s nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“He’s going to Singapore,” Conway told reporterts over breakfast near the White House. “Secretary of State [Mike] Pompeo has clearly taken the lead on the negotiations … but the national security adviser is going. He will be part of those talks.”
Bolton joined the White House National Security Council in March and has been present for most of Trump’s meetings with foreign dignitaries since taking the position. But several media outlets reported this week that he was noticeably absent from a high-stakes Oval Office meeting with North Korea’s vice chairman Kim Yong Chol last Friday. Trump was instead joined by Pompeo for the 90-minute discussion, during which the president agreed to meet with Kim in Singapore on June 12 after previously canceling their planned summit.
North Korean officials had previously targeted Bolton in complaints about the administration’s approach to nuclear negotiations. His suggestion that U.S. officials rely on the “Libya model” in talks with Pyongyang caused uproar within the Kim regime, since Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi was assassinated by rebel-backed forces years after surrendering his nuclear weapons program.
Conway said the “absence of someone in any one meeting or any one event” does not always mean they have been pushed out of the president’s inner circle, noting that Bolton has been active behind the scenes in preparing Trump for the upcoming summit.
“[Trump] has been extensively briefed [and] he’s preparing in many different ways,” she told reporters.
[Trump getting daily briefings on North Korea’s nuclear program ahead of summit]
The president is expected to travel to Singapore after meeting with G7 allies in Quebec later this week. He will be joined by Pompeo, Bolton, chief of staff John Kelly, deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin, and several other State Department and CIA officials.
“There could be more than one meeting, more that one conversation” between Trump and Kim, Conway said Wednesday, claiming it could take as many as “2, 3, 4, 5” meetings to ink a nuclear deal with the authoritarian regime.
