Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton seemed to solve the mystery of which world leader put the kibosh on nuclear talks in Hanoi when he told Chris Wallace that North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “walked away from” Trump’s offer.
After the Hanoi summit abruptly ended this week without a planned signing ceremony, Donald Trump held a press conference at which he repeatedly claimed that the United States had “decided to walk away” from the bargaining table. But when directly asked whose decision it was to end the talks, Trump refused to say.
On Sunday morning’s edition of Fox News Sunday, Wallace asked Bolton “How did it fall apart? Who said what?”
“Well, I don’t think it fell apart,” Bolton replied, and added “They left on good terms.”
Wallace asked for more details about the meeting. Bolton said he thought “the North Koreans were very disappointed we didn’t buy their bad deal.”
Wallace then asked if there was a moment like the one Ronald Reagan had in Reykjavik with Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev.
“Well, I think there were several, Bolton said. “The president kept saying take what he called the ‘big deal,’ denuclearization, make the decision, give up the nuclear chemical and biological weapons, give up the ballistic missiles, he handed Kim Jong Un a piece of paper, actually two, one in Korean and one in English, that laid out what we expected there, and in exchange for that you get this well-placed piece of real estate, as the president judges it from his business experience, that could have an extraordinary economic future.”
“What did Kim say?” Wallace asked.
“He walked away from it,” Bolton answered.
As Sean Hannity noted during that press conference this week, it was Ronald Reagan who walked away in Reykjavik.
Watch the clip above, from Fox.
[Image via screengrab]
Have a tip we should know? tips@mediaite.com
