John Bolton appears surprised by report Trump might propose North Korean nuclear freeze

Trump and National Security Adviser John Bolton
(Image credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

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.

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.