On Sunday, after President Trump's meeting with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration has being working for weeks on an offer for Kim to exchange some U.S. sanctions relief for what amounted to "a nuclear freeze, one that essentially enshrines the status quo, and tacitly accepts the North as a nuclear power, something administration officials have often said they would never stand for."
Chief among those administration officials is National Security Adviser John Bolton, who did not travel with Trump to the DMZ. While Fox News host Tucker Carlson and daughter Ivanka Trump were at the DMZ with Trump, Bolton "had been sent, or sent himself, to Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia," The Guardian reports. And Bolton tweeted Monday that the Times report must be wrong — the other possibility presumably being that Bolton is not privy to Trump's national security plans.
Trump said after meeting Kim that he wants a "comprehensive" denuclearization deal, as Bolton is pushing, but he also appeared open to a more incremental approach, too, The Guardian reports. A nuclear freeze would be a public step down for Trump, but, the Times notes, it would represent tangible progress, something Trump has so far failed to achieve, as he seeks re-election.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
"For such talks to succeed, Bolton might not only have to be excluded from the DMZ but from the White House, too," The Guardian speculates. "Far stranger things have happened in this administration and the fact that the president referred to his national security adviser more than once on Sunday as 'Mike' Bolton may be a sign."
-
The vast horizons of the Puna de AtacamaThe Week Recommends The ‘dramatic and surreal’ landscape features volcanoes, fumaroles and salt flats
-
Asylum hotels: everything you need to knowThe Explainer Using hotels to house asylum seekers has proved extremely unpopular. Why, and what can the government do about it?
-
Crossword: November 16, 2025The daily crossword from The Week
-
Trump DOJ sues to block California redistrictingSpeed Read California’s new congressional map was drawn by Democrats to flip Republican-held House seats
-
GOP retreats from shutdown deal payout provisionSpeed Read Senators are distancing themselves from a controversial provision in the new government funding package
-
Catholic bishops rebuke Trump on immigrationSpeed Read ‘We feel compelled’ to ‘raise our voices in defense of God-given human dignity,’ the bishops said
-
House releases Epstein emails referencing TrumpSpeed Read The emails suggest Trump knew more about Epstein’s sex trafficking of underage women than he has claimed
-
Newsom slams Trump’s climate denial at COP30speed read Trump, who has called climate change a ‘hoax,’ declined to send any officials to this week’s summit
-
UK, Colombia halt intel to US over boat attacksSpeed Read Both countries have suspended intelligence sharing with the US over the bombing of civilian boats suspected of drug smuggling
-
Trump pardons 2020 fake electors, other GOP alliesSpeed Read The president pardoned Rudy Giuliani and more who tried to overturn his 2020 election loss
-
Supreme Court to decide on mail-in ballot limitsSpeed Read The court will determine whether states can count mail-in ballots received after Election Day
