the length of this meeting matters. if this is just a shorthand shaikh, a photo op for both sides, we ll see how much comes out of this. if this goes on longer, it s an indication they re talking of substance, they real talking of strategy, and they re talking about how to have a next full summit. and we ll see. when the president was pressed on whether or not hehe would ha that this year, he didn t w see to want t to box himself in. he wants to take his time. but the president knows the political clock as well as anyone. he knows he s up for re-election. he wants to runs on what he thinks is an accomplishment. richard? hans, how do south koreans feel about this? i was there over the last month. they had two missile tests when i was not too far from where you were at. and they barely even registered it. they barely even talked about it. there s that dynamic for south koreans. there s also theic dynamic here that oh, it s the united states again leading what is very essential, very im
richard. let s go to hans nichols, who is also on top of this for us. hans nichols, as you know, many marine ones might be there. we don t know which helicopter the president might be on. you have some informationmi for us. that was a schakowsky helicopter. that s what the president travels on. he sometimes haskyen multiple helicopters that fly in. they do f that for decoy reason. typically when the president leaves on the south lawn he has one helicopter pick him up and two in theco air, almost a gamef three-card monte to foil any would-be assassin or terrorists. one thing we need to acknowledge here and that is the physical risk that president donald trump is taking and the great deal of heartburn theea secret service well as the military must have right now. the secret service never lets the president be exposed to a flank, in this case a front, that they haven t already scoured and/or combed. wherever you travel with the president there are mentr with long gunsar and long binocul
th this is what he saidki within t last 45 minutes. we re going to the dmz border, and i ll be meeting with chairman kim. i look forward to it very much. i look forwardwa to seeing him. we ve developed a very good relationship. and we understand each other. i do believe he understands me and i thinkie i maybe understan him. and sometimes that can lead to very good things. many topics were covered along with his discussions of president xi. this in addition to the statement that we were just discussing. but if you re justre joining ust the top of the hour j the president, president trump, saying that president obama had wanted to meet with kim jong un and that indeed from his recollections, from what he knows, president trump saying, thatru kim jong un did not wanto meet with him. as well as security issues, relationships with south korea itself.th let s go to hans nichols who is there with the president in seoul, t south korea. really a lot to cover in a short a time here.
this e we also just saw this with iran, right? where the president was willing to gift leadership of iran a pass in saying it could have just been a rogue general. so while yes, the president may have an assurance from kim jong un that his safety is assured, there are potentially rogue elements on the other side. and there sen no guarantee that everyone on that north korean side doesn t wish president trump or presidentth kim jong u ill will. and that s aon huge risk. and i think we should acknowledge that. let s getkn back to richard engel. are you seeing anything? and reflecting what hans said there about security and where they may or may not be shake hands. yes there is always a risk that one of the soldiers on the north koreanth side or in theora soldier on the south korean side could decide to start world war 3. but i think that is a fairly small risk because there is an enormous deterrence factor.
and that gives the prospect, the possibility that they will talk aboutth real issues, namely, ho is north korea going to completely denuclearize and crucially whatmp will the verification regime be. there are a lot of issues between the north and the u.s. on this. you saw it collapse in hanoi. they have serious and substantive differences. they need to iron those out. this is an attempt to get that back onem track. and it is going to be quite a historic moment there in the dmz. richard? you know, with that, hans, let s goth straight back to the dmz with richard engel, our chief foreign correspondent. richard, do we know in terms of timing, is it any moment that we expect president trump to be arriving there, t richard? as well as kim jong un? i see there s buses behind you. ie don t know if that was ther earlier when we were speaking. reporter: no, there have been buss and? traffic moving in and out of this viarea. on the south korean side the dmz is something of a tourist