North Korea

Kim has already taken advantage of the situation. He met with President Moon in a quickly organized second summit meeting, creating the perception that North and South Korea were working toward peace, while the U.S. gets the blame for obstructing dialogue...Moon has been clear that he wants to play the role of mediator between the US and North Korea, in effect 'coaching' Trump and Kim on how to handle each other...There is concern that improvement of inter-Korean relations without Kim's commitment and actions on denuclearization will defeat the "maximum pressure" campaign (if it hasn't already), while it buys time for Kim to continue developing his WMDs and normalize his claimed status as a nuclear weapons power.

President Trump agreed to [the summit with Kim Jong-un] initially on a very impulsive basis, without any kind of consultations with his immediate circle, without any consideration of the complexities of it and, frankly, with the belief that somehow North Korea could be talked out of its nuclear weapons.

It just seemed to me that ultimately even Trump had to face the music on this [potential summit meeting with Kim Jong-un] and simply cancel it. The North Koreans have never said they would give up their nuclear weapons. Never. And it might have behooved the administration if they had paid more attention to what North Korea says very, very consistently.