community, watching north korea all the time, making calculations about their weapons program, even over the last several months, what they have, what they could do, how quickly they could restart it. all of this intelligence gathering has continued as you would expect to go on for months now. and it is never stopped. so the administration is in a position to be ready if the north koreans take action. but the real question is what is going on in kim s head right now that made them engage in this rhetoric. and lead to the summit being put off. just weeks before it was set to happen. barbara starr, thank you. it is the top of the hour, 10:00 a.m. eastern. let us bring you the breaking news. welcome again to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. significant breaking news on this thursday morning. the planned summit, the historic summit in just a few weeks between kim jong-un and president trump is now off. this coming in a letter that president trump has written to
denuclearization, north korea seemed to have a much more broader view of this. it wasn t unilateral on the part of north korea, more global, part of the global arms control effort and also that would have been a nonstarter for us. north korea would ask us to do it. there is they didn t give themselves a lot of time to get to the summit. it is decent, it is a good decision to take a pause and re-evaluate. samantha, i want to look down really quick, the president is just tweeting, let me take a look at it first, tweeting, if we can throw it up for our viewers as well, i was forced to cancel the summit meeting in singapore with kim jong-un and then putting up letter he sent to kim jong-un. let me ask you, though, is it strategic or emotional what we re looking at this morning? i ask that because president and aides, the president seems so angry, that was the reporting, he was infuriated by north korea statement about mike pence,
himself. but at the same time, i think this is, as kaitlan was saying this is something the president s aides have been discussing for several days. last night we were getting indications from u.s. officials that the u.s. just did not feel comfortable. the u.s. side did not have a lot of clarity on kim s intentions, was he really ready to fully give up his nuclear program, that word denuclearize, and what did that mean for him. in recent days, aides, others as the secretary just said were trying to get more clarity on the agenda, on what it is that kim was ready to put on the table. and they didn t feel that kind of seriousness of effort and so obviously then the rhetoric stemmed from that. i think this is a sign that the u.s. didn t feel comfortable, that this was going to be a success. i might say, though, kate, the president ends the letter by saying if you change your mind having to do with this most important summit, please don t hesitate to call or write.
sincerely yours, donald j. trump, president of the united states of america. thank you, mr. chairman. thank you, sir. we want to thank you for joining us today. and although you re here for a confirmation, you re here just six weeks ago for your confirmation hearing, in just a month, again, i want to commend you on an energetic and forceful start to your tenure. we hold a budget hearing each year and that s a formal subject of today s meeting. but as you and i have talked, budgets coming from administration these days and for many years are not really focused on that much as you know and there is a process we go through here to really determine what expenditures are going to be made. so since it really doesn t have a great effect on the outcomes here, it is it would be my guess that there really won t be many questions around the budget and i think you know that even though you re going to present it, fulfilling your
was he feel eing threatened? was he feeling vulnerable by reaching out to the u.s., by reaching out and trying to have this summit? we don t know that yet. what is so important is he s about his survival. that is what is motivating him. as recently as yesterday, pardon me, analysts in the government were telling me that they think that is really all important to watch. that kim had laid the table for this summit, mr. trump was in the position constantly of reacting and still to this day, the u.s. is reacting to what kim s regime is saying, to what the north koreans were saying. the u.s. never really grabbed control of that agenda. it was in a reactive mode. and kim knows that. so now the question is what is his next move. i can tell you the u.s. military never gave up keeping its satellites, its intelligence assets, its reconnaissance, the spies in the intelligence