Politics

Watch: White House takes questions after Trump says meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un 'may not work out'

Key Points
  • White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is slated to take questions from reporters Tuesday.
  • President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un planned for June "may not work out."
  • The U.S. and China are in the midst of trade negotiations that have recently focused on Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE.

[The stream is scheduled to start at 3 p.m. ET. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.]

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is slated to take questions from reporters Tuesday, shortly after President Donald Trump said his meeting with North Korea's Kim Jong Un planned for June "may not work out."

Trump's comments cast doubt on the prospect of a landmark face-to-face meeting between a U.S. president and a North Korean leader, which remains scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. Such a meeting has never occurred before.

In his Oval Office remarks Tuesday alongside South Korean President Moon Jae-In, Trump said Kim's attitude changed after his second meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"If it doesn't happen, maybe it'll happen later," Trump said. "Whether or not it happens, you'll know pretty soon."

The U.S. and China are in the midst of trade negotiations that have recently focused on Chinese telecommunications giant ZTE.

The Trump administration had blocked U.S. companies from selling to ZTE due to the company's violation of sanctions on North Korea and Iran.

In a May 13 tweet, Trump announced that he is working with China to help get ZTE "back into business." On Tuesday, Trump reiterated that Xi "asked me to look into it."

Trump tweet

Meanwhile, Trump again spoke out against revelations in recent news reports that an FBI informant had investigated a number of associates of Trump's presidential campaign.

Trump had previously tweeted that an informant in his campaign would constitute the "all time biggest political scandal" if true. He also claimed, without evidence, that the informant was "implanted" into the campaign "for political purposes."

Trump tweet 2

In his Tuesday remarks, Trump said that "if they had spies in my campaign, that would be a disgrace to this country," and that it "would probably make every political event ever look like small potatoes."

On Sunday, the Justice Department asked its internal watchdog, Inspector General Michael Horowitz, to investigate "any impropriety or political motivation" in the FBI's counterintelligence probe of Russian election interference.

Trump and chief of staff John Kelly met on Monday with Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats.

Trump said Tuesday that "General Kelly's going to be setting up a meeting between Congress and the various representatives, and they'll be able to open up documents, take a look and find out what happened."