Trump-Kim summit: US president blames failure of talks on North Korea's demand for sanctions to be dropped
Follow the latest updates on the historic meeting
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un have cut short their talks in Hanoi, Vietnam and skipped a scheduled lunch event.
The White House confirmed the summit had ended with “no agreement reached” as the leaders headed back to their respective hotels.
The US president talks broke down over North Korea’s demands on US-led sanctions.
“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that,” he told reporters. “Sometimes you have to walk.”
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said negotiations would continue at a future date.
Several Democrats came out acknowledging Mr Trump’s decision to walk away without a deal was the right move in this situation. Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff said walking away with no deal was better than agreeing to a bad deal, before adding that it was “the result of a poorly planned strategy.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer echoed similar statements, citing his concerns about the likelihood of a bad deal forming out of the summit.
“A deal that fell short of complete denuclearization would have only made North Korea stronger & the world less safe,” Mr Schumer said.
After the summit, Mr Trump also defended Mr Kim over the tragic death of American college student Otto Warmbier, who was jailed in North Korea in December 2015 for attempting to steal propaganda material during an organised tour.The president said he does not believe the autocratic leader was aware of Mr Warmbier’s condition in the North Korean hard labour prison camp.
"He tells me he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Mr Trump said.
After two years of imprisonment, North Korean authorities returned Mr Warbier to the US in a coma in July 2017. A few days later, the 22-year-old died in his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio.
Ohio Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman criticised the American president’s defense of Mr Kim.
“I’m very concerned that the President didn’t seem to be all that concerned about the murder of Otto Warmbier from Cincinnati,” Mr Brown told reporters on Thursday. “I don’t know how he says he likes the dictator of NK so much.”
Mr Portman insists that Mr Trump and the American people must remember Mr Warmbier and that “we should never let North Korea off the hook for what they did to him."
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Michael Cohen is reportedly planning on testifying against the president during his Congressional testimonies this week, indicating that Donald Trump engaged in criminal conduct while in the White House.
As Michael Cohen testifies in front of Congress, Senate investigators are chasing David Geovanis, a US businessman who has held a Russian passport since 2014 and was last seen by his family in the US in 2017, to talk about his relationship with Donald Trump, according to a new report.
At least two witnesses who spoke to the US Senate Intelligence Committee provided details about the president’s past interactions with Mr Geovanis, who previously worked for Oleg Deripaska — the same Russian oligarch whose meetings with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort are also the subject of scrutiny by investigators, CNN reported on Thursday.
Trump has just tweeted the following the message from his hotel in Hanoi:
“Just arrived in Vietnam,” the president wrote. “Thank you to all of the people for the great reception in Hanoi. Tremendous crowds, and so much love!”
Democrats in the US Senate have just introduced legislation demanding a public report on the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
The White House has refused to press Saudi officials on the matter, leading to fierce criticism from lawmakers on either side of the political aisle:
Just a quick update that Michael Cohen’s public testimony has been moved to 10am EST on Wednesday. Be sure to keep up with The Independent’s live coverage tomorrow as we bring you the latest.
As the US House of Representatives begins a bid to reject Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has tweeted the following message quoting the president himself saying “I didn’t need to do this.”
House Democrats have voted to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border.
The Oversight Committee voted Tuesday to approve subpoenas to the heads of Justice, Homeland Security and Health and Human Services. With Democrats as a majority, the authorization is expected, but it’s still not clear whether the subpoenas will actually be served.
If they are, they would be some of the first issued in the new Congress. House Democrats have promised to hold the administration aggressively to account. The committee’s chairman, Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, has pledged to press the administration for documents and testimony on a wide swath of issues, but family separation was among his first priorities.
AP
Donald Trump will veto a pair of gun reform bills seeking to enhance nationwide background checks if they pass the US Senate, the White House has announced, citing “burdensome requirements on certain firearm transactions.”
The president had previously stated his support for strengthening federal background checks on gun sales while discussing the bipartisan measure with Senator John Cornyn at his Florida golf club last year, one week after a gunman killed 17 people inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school, which is located just 40 miles away from Mr Trump’s exclusive property.
His administration reversed that stance in a statement on Monday, however, as it appeared H.R. 8 and H.R. 1112 — the two background check bills making their way through Congress — could pass the US Senate with several Republicans possibly supporting either legislation.
A New York Times report has claimed the president’s former attorney Michael Cohen will describe the extent of his “lies, racism and cheating,” as well as his criminal conduct while in the White House, during his public testimony on Wednesday.
The Times reported Cohen “is prepared to describe Mr Trump making racist statements as well as lying or cheating in business”. He previously told a magazine outlet the president said “black people are too stupid to vote for me” during the 2016 election.
The newspaper, which spoke to an anonymous source that had been briefed on Cohen’s upcoming public testimony, also revealed he would “describe the president inflating or devaluing his net worth”.
After long journeys to Vietnam, U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are in place for their second summit to address perhaps the world’s biggest security challenge: Kim’s pursuit of a nuclear program that stands on the verge of realistically threatening targets around the planet.
Although many experts are skeptical Kim will give up the nuclear weapons he likely sees as his best guarantee of continued rule, there was a palpable, carnival-like excitement among many in Hanoi as the final preparations were made for the meeting. There were also huge traffic jams in the already congested streets.
The two leaders are to meet over two days, first at dinner on Wednesday followed by meetings on Thursday.
AP
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