Trump says Kim Jong-un has responded to his overtures but doesn’t offer details
Donald Trump has said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has responded to his overtures after he ordered the US to scale back military exercises with South Korea.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked why Kim had not responded to his overtures. Trump shot back at the reporter: “How do you know he hasn’t responded?” The reporter then asked again if he had.
“Um, yeah he has,” Trump said. He didn’t give further details about how Kim had responded, but added:
Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect and we met on numerous occasions, actually two primary occasions, spoken and spent time. I understand him. He understands me.
Their relationship was a dominant theme during Trump’s first term, including a series of meetings between them, but has received less emphasis in his second term.
Key events
Trump then moved on to answering another reporter’s question, claiming that it was “a CNN fake report” that there isn’t enough food on the USS Abraham Lincoln, which hasn’t seen port in nine months.
“The Lincoln has been out there for a good period of time,” he said, claiming that it’s been out at sea for longer periods of time and is “beautifully maintained”. This echoes comments he made last Friday that the deployment was “not nearly long enough”.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed concerns from military families and members of Congress who have called attention to the intensifying mental health crisis and poor conditions for those onboard the aircraft carrier, as its 5,000 sailors and marines endure a record-breaking deployment at sea tied to Trump’s war with Iran.
The president also had an astonishing exchange with a CNN reporter, telling her multiple times to “BE QUIET” and accusing her of being “a fake reporter”.
She tried several times to ask her question, while Trump talked over and insulted her:
You’re fake news. You’re a loud, boisterous person, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, you’re a fake reporter and you report fake news.
Trump has an ugly history of speaking to female reporters in this way.
Trump also claimed he was “actually making it much safer” for South Korea by scaling back joint military drills just days after North Korea test-fired ballistic missiles.
He said again that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un had always “treated me with great respect” and that they understand each other.
I get along with him very well. Now, what I’m doing is making things safer.
Asked if the US was any closer to a deal with Iran to end its nuclear programme, Trump told reporters:
They want to make a deal, but they’re not going to make the kind of deal that I feel is necessary.
The US and Iran signed a memorandum of understanding on 17 June but the two-month window for a negotiated settlement closed today without a breakthrough.
Trump says Kim Jong-un has responded to his overtures but doesn’t offer details
Donald Trump has said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has responded to his overtures after he ordered the US to scale back military exercises with South Korea.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump was asked why Kim had not responded to his overtures. Trump shot back at the reporter: “How do you know he hasn’t responded?” The reporter then asked again if he had.
“Um, yeah he has,” Trump said. He didn’t give further details about how Kim had responded, but added:
Kim Jong-un has always treated me with great respect and we met on numerous occasions, actually two primary occasions, spoken and spent time. I understand him. He understands me.
Their relationship was a dominant theme during Trump’s first term, including a series of meetings between them, but has received less emphasis in his second term.
Donald Trump is currently speaking to the press in the Oval Office as he meets Ryder Williams, a teenage lifeguard who saved a 10-year-old boy from pounding waves off the California coast last month.
Trump previously said on social media that he would be inviting Williams to the White House to reward his bravery. The child Williams saved, Nathaniel Rai, and his father are also at the meeting.
Dramatic video of the rescue went viral last month. It showed Williams clinging to Rai as waves repeatedly crashed over them. The pair disappeared from view and re-emerged after several seconds as the wave receded.
A second lifeguard was eventually able to help get them both back to shore at Seabright Beach in Santa Cruz.
Williams’s father, Shane Williams, who is also at the Oval Office meeting today, told the Guardian at the time: “I almost started crying because how determined he was to save that boy’s life makes me so proud.”
Trump initially commented on the video in response to a post from his son, Eric Trump, who said Williams deserved “the highest civilian honor”.
Trump blames ‘vandals’ for damaged grass in the spot where he held his big July 4 celebration
Donald Trump has blamed “vandals” for large swaths of dead grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial — in the very spot where he had a stage built and hosted crowds for his 4 July celebration.
Trump made the accusation in a social media post yesterday without saying why he believes it’s the work of vandals instead of trampled turf from the Independence Day festivities. He posted a photo showing a once-grassy area by the World War II Memorial, now patchy and brown across much of the sprawling turf.
“Look what VANDALS did to the grass connecting the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool, which will be opened again, and better than ever, shortly,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “Anybody who thinks the Reflecting Pool wasn’t vandalized should go back to Law School!”
Trump has repeatedly blamed “vandals” for damage to his renovation projects in the nation’s capital, often without evidence and sometimes despite opposing accounts from his officials.
Trump lashed out at US attorney Jeanine Pirro this month after her office concluded that damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was the result of poor construction and not the work of vandals.
Authorities on Friday announced an arrest in connection with vandalism at the World War II Memorial , after the words “Clean hands dirty $” were found painted on the monument and bubbles filled a fountain. Pirro said felony charges were being brought against Melissa L Farris, who was in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment by the Associated Press.
A woman identified on her Facebook page as Melissa Lovewell on Thursday posted a video in which she is seen taking cans of spray paint from her bag and then painting the monument. “I will wait here to be arrested for spraying our veterans’ fountain,” she says. “It was me. I’m doing it. It’s on camera.”
The woman was identified by her Kentucky driver’s license as Melissa L Farris, of Elizabethtown, Kentucky, an arrest warrant cited by the AP says.
Charging documents in that case make no mention of the grassy area Trump is highlighting in his new claims. Authorities said Farris had previously been arrested for camping on federal property a few blocks from the World War II Memorial, but not the area cited by Trump.
That stretch of lawn is instead where a large stage was built and crowds gathered to hear from Trump and watch fireworks at a 4 July event celebrating the nation’s 250th anniversary. Trump claimed without providing evidence that more than 400,000 people attended the event before a storm hit the area and delayed his remarks.
Photos from the time, taken by a streaming webcam atop the Washington Monument, show a large bandstand and seating areas covering nearly the entire lawn Trump now says has been vandalized. Associated Press photos from the days that followed showed workers removing the structures, revealing brown, damaged grass underneath.
On 1 August, Trump posted a different photo of the same area that appears to show the numbers “86 47” – which federal officials have said constitutes a threat against Trump, the 47th president – emblazoned into the grass.
He cited it as evidence refuting Pirro’s conclusion, calling it “a pure case of VANDALISM, that included the grass.” Trump wrote: “There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by VANDALS!”
Those numbers are not visible in the photo Trump posted yesterday.
Gaya Gupta
US gas prices this month are so far the highest ever recorded for August as peace talks between the US and Iran have stalled and Donald Trump launched fresh threats against Oman.
The national average price of gas was $4.06 per gallon on Monday, according to data from AAA, $0.05 higher than last week and $1 more expensive than a year ago. In California and Hawaii, averages hit about $5.50 a gallon.
Energy prices have been high since the US-Israel war with Iran began at the end of February and the strait of Hormuz, a crucial waterway through which a fifth of the oil passes, was blocked.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, reached $112 a barrel in March, a high not seen since 2022. While prices have since come down closer to $85 a barrel, they are still about 30% higher than a year ago.
Attorney General Todd Blanche on Monday announced changes to the process for restoring federal gun possession rights to those who lost them as a consequence of criminal convictions.
“Restoration of firearm rights is neither automatic nor guaranteed,” Blanche said in a published statement on X.
Under the new rules, each applicant must prove to the attorney general’s satisfaction that their record, reputation and conduct since the prohibition show they are not likely to act in a manner dangerous to public safety; and that granting relief is not contrary to the public interest.
Violent felons, registered sex offenders, undocumented immigrants, fugitives, habitual drug users and people under domestic-violence restraining orders are presumed ineligible for gun rights restoration.
Previously, the restoration of federal gun rights effectively required a presidential pardon. The DoJ is launching a web-based portal for applications.
Tom Ambrose
Benjamin Netanyahu and US envoy Jared Kushner discussed putting an American general in charge of verifying Hamas’s disarmament earlier today, an Israeli official said, as the Israeli prime minister insisted there would be no pullout from Gaza until then.
Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, flew to the region after Netanyahu, facing a tough re-election fight, publicly rejected the latest part of a US plan aimed at ending Israel’s devastating war on Gaza.
Kushner, who has long family ties to Netanyahu, met with him in Jerusalem a day after holding rare direct talks in Egypt with Hamas, which has publicly committed itself to the plan and to disarmament, winning praise from Trump but prompting deep scepticism in Israel.
The two sides “agreed that no redeployment or reconstruction would take place in the Gaza Strip before Hamas is disarmed throughout Gaza”, a senior Israeli official told AFP.
Supreme court rejects Trump’s bid to overturn E Jean Carroll verdict for second time
The US supreme court has rejected Donald Trump’s latest attempt to overturn a jury judgment that found him liable for sexually abusing and then defaming writer E Jean Carroll.
The high court did not give any reason for its decision not to rehear the president’s challenge. In late June it also refused to hear his appeal against the original May 2023 verdict, leaving intact the $5m that Carroll was awarded in damages.
Carroll, 82, a former journalist and columnist, accused Trump of assaulting her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in Manhattan in 1996.
When the allegations were published in an excerpt from her 2019 memoir, Trump called Carroll a “nut job” and accused her of lying.
Trump paid $5.6m in damages and post-judgement interest to Carroll last month after a civil jury found him liable for sexual abuse and defamation.
In a separate defamation case in New York, Trump was ordered to pay $83.3m to her. Trump has also appealed that judgment to the supreme court.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2026/aug/17/politics-trump-south-korea-military-pentagon-republicans-democrats
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