this is kim jong-un decided to give them up preemptively. he is not holding them as a negotiating card. i think that s a very good sign. the fact that you have seen this increased tempo, this increased pace of diplomacy between secretary of state pompeo and kim jong-un. they have now met twice in the last month. that s also very unusual and suggests the north may be calculating that they have to do something completely different. what we re not persuaded of yet is that kim is willing to go give up the one legacy that his father and grandfather elected and to establish a regime throughout the country that would ensure us that they are, in fact, completely disarmed. a north korea that has depend said upon nuclear weapons for
warmbier that puts all of this in perspective and shows what the regime is capable of doing and indeed has done. but going forward, we are told, cnn is learning that the summit between president trump and kim jong-un likely to take place next month likely in singapore. the details are expected to be announced in the coming days. but the president now is going to be sitting down with his secretary on of state who has a lot of firsthand information now after that 90-minute meeting with kim jong-un to hammer out the details for what that summit will look like. certainly this a big moment here. but bigger moments to come if this deal is to be worked out. chris and alisyn. brother zell tpheurbgs thank you very much. let s bring in the panel. we have national security correspondent for the new york times , david sanger. is and cnn international correspondent will rip lu. will has traveled to north korea 17 times. david sanger, you can look at this moment two ways.
united states offered nothing. that this was a one-way exchange. but that s not really true, david, right? because they re getting the summit. you re meeting with kim jong-un. the president of the united states is saying positive things about him in a way we have never heard any president speak with the optimism and the praise of the actions of this truly murderous regime. so north korea got plenty out of this is. they did. remember, this is not the first time a president has gotten prisoners released. it happened under president obama, president bush. sometimes the u.s. is sent delegations, so they got something out of it. bill clinton went early in the obama administration. jim clapper went and brought others out, as will noted before. they did get a lot out of this, though, this setting up the summit. and they got a president who talks about a man regarded as
years, over five presidents, that we don t know how many nuclear weapons they have. the estimates run yo from 20 to 60. and we don t know where all of their facilities are. we ve got some pretty good hints about some of them. they have never allowed inspectors to go throughout the country. so this is going to become the most complex nuclear inspection regime that has ever been attempted anywhere in the world. it will be fascinate to go see how it works out. it will be fascinate to go see if kim jong-un is su happy with pele going through his country at that level. will, iant to get back to the human interests side. you pointed out their families were not there when they touched down on u.s. soil. is that unusual? do you have any thoughts on why they weren t there? i think the way that all of
in a few days. that is how they have justified building their arsenal. now kim jong-un meeting twice with xi jinping. they are saying we have your back. we support your approach. china saying they want simultaneous approach. what the u.s. and north korea wants, very different. that s going to be the challenge. david, what happens if the line winds up being peace. that should be last. deal with the other big ticket things, nuclearization, what they are doing with how they treat their people in north korea, and the militarization of that regime. that s all priority. then at the end you talk about the armistice and converting that to peace. it is no longer just a cease-fire, armistice. if you just get that, how big a deal? if you just get that, you ve got something on paper but you have not gotten to the