Indicating its willing to talk to north korea but saying its up to kim jongun. So who blinks first . All of that coming up. Lets start with the confusion inside the white house as officials try to get their heads around President Trumps stance on rob porter, the former aide resigning over spousal abuse allegations. Publicly the president has defended porter, saying the accounts are just mere allegations and shouldnt ruin someones career. But reports say that privately the president considers porter, and im quoting now, sick. Our senior white house editor jeff zel aeny. What are you hearing from the president to publicly stand by rob porter . Reporter we do know at this moment, first of all, white house chief of staff john kelly is still on the job here. He is the key to this equation. Rob porter, who resigned abruptly last week, is perhaps on the president s mind but the president did not answer questions about him, and the whole matter of security clearances just a short time ago here
Reporter thats right, john. It has been six days since rob porter first resigned. There has been a myriad of questions over the white houses handling of this and which officials knew about the allegations long before they became public. But now were also getting a lot of questions as to where the president truly stands on this issue because if you look at his public statements, hes been very dismissive of the allegations and defensive of rob porter, but aides say the president is actually quite critical of rob porter in private, calling him a sick puppy, but now aides are wondering why there are those two different conflicting stances from the president , one in public, and one in private. And aides are telling me theyre wondering where the president true ly stands on this issue. And if so hes critical of porter in private, why is he not making that sentiment made public in his tweets and in his remarks . So those questions are surfacing, those questions also about how the chief of sta