[ speaking foreign language ] >> president trump with moon jae-in. hans nichols with us. assignment of a team. pointing to steve. sounded an awful lot like a deadline. didn't make it firm. a little loose.

but seemed to be saying two different things, inconsistencies could be larger challenge that white house and president has, how do they get back to summit diplomacy? it's clear from north koreans they like dealing just with the president. been very dismissive of secretary pompeo, time he visited wasn't allowed an audience. and mentioned lead negotiator for the process. north koreans like to deal with the president. and when president tweets, kim jong-un responds. always the dangerous. i don't know if more comments but toss back to you richard. >> as we do listen to moon jae-in give his remarks, maybe fit in victor cha quickly. what did you think of the comments made by the president and team? designate a team is words he

used. then pointed over his shoulder. >> that's a good outcome i think. idea this meeting will actually lead to empowerment of working level teams to negotiate the details. from perspective of the experts, that's good sign. picked up on same thing that hans did, two weeks is very short time frame to work out a deal. not really clear on what that means or whether the president has in mind the idea of inviting kim to the white house in the short time frame, but that's not lot of time to do this. we spent weeks. >> we have translation. listen to president moon's statement. >> however, thanks to president trump's bold proposal, this historic meeting had taken place. now i'd like to pay tribute to the creative and bold approach that president trump has

demonstrated, also through this meeting today, in the process of achieving complete denuclearization and permanent peace, i believe we've been able to go over a big hurdle. this has presented big hope for the 80,000 korean people and people of the whole world. i believe it's also significant process that united states and north korea have agreed to set up teams and begin working level negotiations in the near future. that in itself constitutes a success. i'm looking forward to great accomplishment through this process and would like to thank president trump again. >> thank you very much. and want to thank chairman kim. when we put out that notice, knowing the press like i do, had he decided not to come, you would have hit me hard. we're thanking him for doing is on quick notice.

less than 24 hours i guess. that's pretty good. we moved mountains. thank secret service and all the people that worked so hard, setting something like this up quickly is very hard. meeting was very good, strong, solid. great relationship. we'll see what can happen. see if we can do something. but again we want to get it right, don't want to -- not looking for speed but get it right. and in the meantime, there's been no nuclear tests, no ballistic missiles, there's been a lot of good will and continues to be. if anything better, after day than it was even before. so i want to thank all of the media. i'm going over to our great military base and going to speak to our troops. i've been doing this now about three weeks straight in one form or another, having to do with one thing or another, and i

actually look forward to being on air force 1, going to be heading home. lot of you are coming with us. i look forward to it. first a few words to the troops. >> at the border itself, can you walk us through what happened, what the chairman said and what the moment felt like? >> yes, we met at the line. meeting at the line i said would you like me to come across? he said i would be so honored. that's the way it worked out. and i guess from what i understand, this is first time something like that -- mr. admiral -- first time something like that's happened. i said would you like me to come across the line, he said i would be honored to do that, i would be honored. i didn't know what he was going to say but it was my honor to do it. had good meeting. >> did you extend meeting for him to come to the united states? >> i did.

if it all works out, at some point it will all happen. this was pretty big move today based on what everyone was telling me. but it was my honor, i said that to him. we had a pretty long chat, going to have chat for five minutes and ended up an hour or something. but it was very positive -- this was a very positive day and event. i think it's good really for the world. very -- what happened today i think is great for south korea, i think it's great for north korea, i think it's great for the world. when we started this, you had missiles flying over japan, they weren't so happy. have the sirens going and a lot of problems. i think you all remember the case of hawaii, you remember that whole situation. you remember guam, what was happening there. the world was a very tense place. and i became president and went

from rough dialogue for a while, covered it very well. but very rough dialogue, then all of a sudden we came together. so let's see how it happens. steve is going to do fantastic job representing us in the talks. and we'll be dealing with south korea, with president moon and his people. but pretty much it's going to be initial talks between the united states and with north korea. and president moon will be right there. >> what was chairman as response to your invitation? >> initially? we were contacted almost immediately -- >> to the united states. >> just asked him outside, you know what, at the right time, you're going to come over. we'll go over there. we have a ways to go yet, we'll see. but i would certainly extend the invite. but i actually mentioned out there in front of the press, i said anytime he wants to do it.

but i think we want to take this now to the next step. see what happens. very, very positive meeting and very positive meeting on trade with president xi of china. that was a great meeting we had yesterday. we'll see what happens but great meeting. and again, no hurry, all these people hurry with deals, turn out to be disasters. no hurry, no real speed. >> why does chairman kim need to set up a new team? >> we have a team but going to spearhead it, and he's also putting someone in charge we know and like. >> validate those people are still alive negotiators? >> i think they are, main person we know, i would hope the rest are too. i would really hope the rest are too. they said the person we dealt

with wasn't, and i know for a fact he is. >> chairman promise he wouldn't do more missile tests? have been a few. >> small ones, missile that practically every country tests. don't consider that a missile test. wasn't a test. we're talking about long-range ballistic missiles, not even close to testing them and most importantly no nuclear tests. if you remember the end of the obama administration, early part of my administration, tremendous nuclear testing, mountain moved -- if you remember big earthquake, massive nine point something earthquake that was a nuclear test. i think we're on a very good path. this was a terrific day. and now let's say hello to the great troops. you guys going over there? i'll see you, thank you all very

much. >> stay on? >> at some point i'm looking forward to taking them off. i don't like sanctions being on his country. but sanctions remain. but at some point during the negotiation, things can happen. that's what we'll be talking about, okay? thank you very much. >> so ends trip of president donald trump to the dmz in seoul, south korea.

president trump says that everything under his administration was peaceful, things immediately have gotten better. referred to two incidents as how

scary things were in the past incidents. mentioned specifically hawaii and guam, two times where there was such concern that people in hawaii and guam thought there might be imminent attack. problem is both of those incidents happened while president trump was president. and there was biggest spike in tension between north korea and united states and japan and the region happened while president trump was president. his rewriting of history is as blatant as i've ever seen it. just in last hour or so. >> hans nichols also with us, following the commentary here, the president mentioning sanctions. >> i think we heard a subtle shift from the president there, saying would be willing to lift sanctions during the negotiations. in the past it's always been you would have the sanctions lifted, maximum pressure own after north

korea committed and undertook complete and verifiable denuclearization, that marks a shift from president trump, makes ultimate deal easier to get. north koreans always suspect of giving everything up without anything in return, can be more incremental step by step approach and also gave conditional offer to visit the white house to kim jong-un, clearly on the table, i don't know if end of the process, middle of it, but talked about several times inviting him to america once this gets in some way to be finalized. fundamental tension is the clock. president saying on the one hand don't worry about speed or timing, something similar he says about china on iran. at the same time he's given his negotiating team two or three weeks to come up with something. that gives you indication that president does in fact feel the

pressure of the clock. and public pronouncements talking about speed doesn't matter might not be what he's truly thinking about. we have a lot to go on, these teams will get together and see if any progress can be made and president has clearly softened position on when sanctions can be lifted. richard? >> sue mi terry, what do you think of the time line that hans was making note of. >> i don't see how in two to three weeks we'll be able to come up with time line and declaration. that's very tight. unclear hearing president trump, what he means by two to three weeks, they need to come up with whole agreement or start the process? it's unclear. unrealistic time line. you've seen it, don't have anything since singapore, it's been a year. very difficult thing to do with

north korea. i think this is a very difficult time line. but what is interesting is that what president trump was talking about, dismissing short-range missiles, that's interesting, he's talking about now there's no threat, i'm sure the south koreans and japanese are feeling those missiles are a threat and it's not diminished at all because north korea has been working on their nuclear program and missile program throughout the past year. i do think all of this is -- good thing, he's empowered working level folks to go there and start working and associating. but i think significant challenges remain in terms of what we can get.

never been about what the north koreans are going to give up. reason broke down is u.s. not willing to give up sanctions. but no one focused on the fact

that north korea only willing to give up parts of the program they know longer need anymore. i don't want to sound entirely negative. there was no dialogue taking place after hanoi in february, north korea was firing ballistic missiles, even though president trump doesn't call them that, they were ballistic missiles. threatening that part of the world. because usually the way this works is professionals at working level do all the busy work, set up the summit. but in this case we need the summit meetings, massive expenditure of presidential capital in order to just get

working level talks started on a denuclearization agreement. this gives you a sense of how long this road is, and so the north koreans, that's perfect. when trump says we can take plenty of time, not in rush. that's music to their ears, they want to drag it out as long as possible because the longer it goes on, less likely it will be that we will ever have complete removal of all nuclear weapons and programs from north korea. john bolton says he wants the libya model. north korea's program is well i don't understand the beginnings of a program eventually gave up many years ago. and only amassing this material more. time is really on the north korean's side, when trump says we can wait, no rush, music to

north korean ears. >> richard engel, what have been the effects of the sanctions to date? united states sanctions against the north koreans? >> reporter: so, north korea is famously the most sanctioned country on earth. it is cut off from the rest of the world. when you are there, in north korea, it's very hard to get goods from the outside. it is -- they've had periodic severe famine, only the elite have access to any kind of consumer goods. desperately poor country, partly because political and economic systems are broken, partly because under terrible sanctions. they do fight against the sanctions, smuggle oil and other products, food, coal, some going up to russia. but sanctions have made a hermit

kingdom, a poor hermit kingdom. but the kim family has long been immune from that and there are very few resources in the country. you have control of the resources there. you can distribute it to the military. to the inner circle. you can use that to make sure that the people around you a are -- you are the only one putting food on the table. it is a place where -- it's unlike anyplace on earth because of the political system combined with years of sanctions. when you use that term we've used so many times, now that we see the new, if you will, kim jong-un outreach or bromance as someone called it with president trump, are we at hermit kingdom,

version 2? >> maybe. he's certainly a different kind of leader than his father and grandfather. his grandfather famously rarely went out in public. rarely spoke. maybe spoke a few sentences once or twice in public. the way the kims are treated in north korea, they're almost divine. the calendar is based on when they came to power. all events reference back to them. when you go to visit a place, every site is referenced to when one of the members of the kim family came there to inaugurate it or visit. they're full backgrounds are viewed with mythology and legend. there are enormous statues of them throughout the country.

you're seeing a humanized side of a north korean leader. they didn't want to be seen walking around like mere mortals. they did not want to be seen showing weakness. they were supposed to be making wise decisions inspired by divine wisdom. he's putting himself out there that his predecessors haven't. on a fundamental level, that doesn't mean you're seeing at the moment any kind of transf m transformative societal shifts on how people are allowed to live and express themselves inside the dprk. >> victor, as you both are watchers, richard engel, our chief foreign correspondent,

from your perspective working in policy and national security, are we seeing a new kim jong-un in a way because of of the three meetings that have come out and as they were saying earlier, you're not used to seeing a voice attached to an image. >> yeah. i mean, i think so in a way. i feel like from the beginning kim jong-un, once he consolidated his power wanted to model himself like his father. he's the only rotund person in a country where everybody else is starving. he's trying to look more like his grandfather. he's much more of a jolly

fellow, much more of a presence while his father was much more of a recluse. in coming out on the world stage in three meetings were the u.s. president, a chinese leader, meeting with vladimir putin, meeting with singapore in vietnam. that new face is not only connected to his effort in a different personality. he's connected to a national strategy, first focused on building the nuclear weapons and delivery systems which they feel they completed in the first year of the trump administration. because towards the end of 2017, they said we have not completed nuclear weapons program. then the second element that the strategy is now that they have the nuclear weapons, they're trying to get economic assistance and economic development. many look at that second peeiec

and say he's interested in reform. that may be true. not if he gives up his nuclear weapons program. he wants to have his cake and eat it, too. if i could say, richard, one of the interesting things, if you play back the pictures of the meetings and kim going in and out of freedom house. ivanka and jared were there. it looked to me -- it looked to me like the north korean leader's younger sister was also part of that entourage. it wouldn't surprise me if there was a meeting between these two family members who are unofficial but play an important role in the decision-making process on both sides, both for trump and for kim. that was another interesting piece that i caught. at least looking at the pictures being remade on the screen.

-- replayed on the screens. >> hans nichols, we're looking at live pictures of the president's next stop. addressing many of the u.s. military at this location. do we know what his message will be at 5:25 p.m. sunday local time? >> we don't. in the past when he talks to troops, he talks about how he's rebuilt the military, how much he's spent on the military compared to obama, he claims he has the best planes, ships. this is a standard president trump speech. they go and rally the troops. there's a lot of thanks and the president may hand out coins as well. when the president has been on aircraft carriers, i've been with him recently in the western pacific on the "uss wasp." he get a fair amount of energy talking to the troops. he clearly enjoys doing it.

he feeds off their energy. he almost admitted for the first time as president that he was exhausted and tired. said he was looking forward to getting back on air force one. before he does that, he's going to address the troops much richard? >> we're going to take a short break. we're watching the breaking news coverage coming out of seoul, south korea. right now we're looking at live pictures where we expect the president to talk in the next 10, 15 minutes. this is something not done before. that is a u.s. president that that is met and gone into north korea meeting the leader of the north korea at the dmz. that happened about four hours ago. we're going to continue our live coverage coming out of seoul, south korea. again, we expect the president to be making comments shortly during a left-hand side of your screen. for now, a short break. we'll be right back. we'll have more breaking coverage coming out of seoul,

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awarded "top pick" by cnet. demo at an xfinity store, call or go online today. xfinity home. simple. easy. awesome. we just had a very good morning. speed is not the object. we want to do a comprehensive good deal. this was a legendary, very historic day. quick notice. nobody saw this coming. in speaking with president moon, oftentimes, he was saying this is historic, just the meeting is historic. a lot has already come up. because you see what's going on and you see what's happening and you see the level of relationship as opposed when i came into office. when i came into office, it was a fiery mess. >> that's the readout from the president himself. this is from a meeting with kim jong-un that happened at right

now local time 5:31 there by the dmz in seoul, south korea. let's go straight to hans nichols who has been reporting on this there. we're at the bottom of the hour. if you can, hans, reset what we have seen so far today. starting with that readout from the president himself. >> reporter: the president coming out of his nearly hour long meeting, a little more than an hour with kim jong-un saying he had some deliverables, they made progress. where the president seems to like the feeling and the relationship he has with kim jong-un. they agreed to have separate negotiating teamwork out certain details. the president dangled out this conditional offer to kim jong-un to visit him at the white house. this is a big significant step from the president. the other significant step we had from the president coming out of that meeting, he was talking about how he could potentially lift and remove sanctions during the

negotiations. that would mean it's a step by step. kim jong-un might -- some of the sanctions would then be removed. it's a step by step approach that kim jong-un always wanted before the administration was maximum pressure until there was complete and verifiable dee nuke larization. that's a shift from president trump. the president stepped into north korea. he was in there for about 60 seconds, walked in there, retrieved kim jong-un and brought him back for talks. they were both public in front of the cameras but also behind closed doors where they can hash out and try to arrive at the differences they have so they can have their working teams take it from there. the president clearly claiming victory. he's clearly doing a victory lap. we'll see what he says to the troops in owe san and then the president is wheels up. he'll probably have to refuel on the way to d.c.

it's been -- to reset everything for you, richard, a he an eventful 72 hours. he criticized former jimmy carter saying he was a forgettable president. there's been a lot of news. it's going to take us time to digest it all. richard? >> a little bit more to digest, hans. that's going to be what was said between the leaders at the dmz. let's listen to that. >> good to see you again. >> i never expected to meet you at this place. [ inaudible ] >> some of the video there of that interchange. the voice of kim jong-un.

for those watching him over years, one of our analysts here at msnbc and nbc news was reflecti reflecting, by the way, we seldom have heard a leader's voice of north korea. hans nichols, that was and, again, you and i not being the again government analyst for the cia on leaders of north korea, we actually did get to hear him say something plain spokenly. you made it known earlier, i did not expect that i'd be meeting you here at this place. this is a little bit of an event. >> you know, we've been debating back and forth on how impro improvisational it was. we're working on very little sleep. one of the indications were that this was last minute was the chaos of the scene that we saw unfolding there. also, kim jong-un appears to validate the president's own statement that he -- the first

he had this idea was the first he made it public was yesterday when he tweeted it out. this was, by these accounts, a last-minute audible call that the president made. kim jong-un responded and this is at least the prospect, the possibility that these talks can get back on track and that they can take place in a working level and then move forward. there's still big issues, right? let's not be -- there's still very big issues for any negotiation of this magnitude. but they're talking, they're back on track. the president and kim jong-un appeared to have a rapport and that can matter sometimes in difficult negotiations. richard? >> victor -- this is potentially a new phase. we're talking about the teams that the president felt encouraged by. you were part of multilateral negotiations on this very topic during the georgew buw. bush

administration. is it trilateral? >> it's different in one respect. that is that donald trump wants to do this negotiation on his own. -- some power to working level people to do it. that's one. the other is president trump said in the press right after the meeting with kim that moon, the south korean president will be helping. but this is a bilateral meeting, bilateral negotiation between the united states and north korea. when we did the last meeting with north korea in 2005, 2007, it was a multilateral negotiation involving the united states, japan, china and russia, the six-party. this is clearly a bilateral meeting. president trump wants to be

bilateral. any deal that's going to be made is going to require help from other countries, like japan and south korea, maybe russia and china as well. so in that sense, there's differences. you know, this is a reset after hanoi. hanoi was a failure. the fact is, there's high expectations there would be an agreement at hanoi because they let out the principles of the first meeting in singapore and were supposed to implement the agreement in hanoi. that failed. so this is a reset. they're going to let their working level people try to negotiate the details. but because the president likes to do things on his own, it creates a dynamic where the north koreans say to the working level americans who are pushing a hard line, that's not what -- in his tweets he says he's -- he wants to deal with someone at the white house, all these sorts of things. there's a bit of a vicious

circle here. it's best, i think, for the president to step back and allows the working level people to do their things and is not vocal on north korea and lets his professionals do what they're supposed to do to try to get him a deal to make him look good. >> is bilateral better for north korea specifically, victor, rather than the multilateral approach in today's age and where we're at given all of the other headlines we're watching around the world? >> i think they prefer bilateral because they want to be at the table as an equal of the united states. the other players can be on the side but i think they want to sit at the table head to head with the united states. it legitimizes them as a major power, if you will. even though they're a small country. it gives them credibility, potentially of -- even if negotiations don't succeed. so i think they prefer the

bilateral as well. but at the same time, in any bilateral setting, the chinese are always there behind the north koreans, you know, basically supporting them, right? keeping their back. providing them with assistance to blunt the impact of sanctions and ensuring that chinese equities are not lost in any deal with north korea, which of course makes it much harder for the united states to negotiate. we can't have the impact of sanctions bringing the north koreans to the table in the way we would like if the north koreans are back channeling assistance and energy and fuel to the regime as they often do. >> one of the comparisons that he was consistent in making, richard engel, president trump was saying compared to the previous administration and i'm just summarizing here where things were going very badly, that's what the president was

saying when it dime north korea, that now things are going quite well with things he's doing with kim jong-un. man of the statements made, richard engel, were not necessarily a fact. >> there is a lot of rewriting of history going on here. it is true that for many administrations there have been poor relations with north korea. that's obvious to anyone. under president obama and before him north korea was declared the -- part of the axis of evil. relationships for many years have not been like they are today. that is true. but if you look at the specific timeline and you look at the way that president trump is describing it, he makes it sound like the worst period, the worst period of tension was in the latter days of president obama and that he arrived and things suddenly got better because of

his charisma, his outreach, this personal rapport that he forged with kim jong-un and that kim jong-un found with him. that's just not the case. the worst days of rockets, nuclear tests, ballistic missiles happened in the early days of the trump administration when kim jong-un was clearly escalating his provocative acts and president trump was escalating militarily and was escalating the rhetoric calling him the rocket man. but if you listen to the president describe it now, it was bad, he came, he fixed it and it culminated in this great moment president trump doing something that had not been done before, crossing over the sym l symbolic divide and real divide between north and south korea inside the dmz. >> hans, that's why those are

critical of the president, and when you're covering the white house and the president, that is out there. mr. president, are you undertaking the very activity sets because you are thinking of 2020, you are thinking of the messaging of the touch points that you would like to make moving forward for your campaign against whatever democrat you might be facing. >> that's true, richard. it's true of any president running for re-election. there's always about what the political arm of the campaign is doing. perhaps it's been blurred a little bit more with president trump. come under fire on several occasions, for example, giving political speeches in front of the military in the past. you don't denigrate democrats for example. any white house at this stage of a presidency has one eye on the re-election prospect. they're thinking about what they can possibly do in the foreign affairs front. past presidents thought about drawing out of wars, recall lbj on what he was doing going into

the '72 campaign. he ultimately didn't do that. what nixon did with the christmas bombing in '72. foreign policy has a way to affect domestic political considerations and it's very difficult to adjudicate which president is more egregious than the other. clearly this president, it's on his mind and he loves the photo-op. when you look at this picture at the air base, you're going to see military hardware in the backdrop. president donald trump like that and the white house advance team really like that. they try to have the pageantry and the majesty of the office conveyed to the american people. speaking of which, we watch the live pictures out of osan air base which we expect the president to a arrive very, very soon. in that live picture, you can see a piece of military hardware on the left side of your screen there at the air base. we'll keep an eye on this.

we expect the president to be speaking there at 5:44 p.m. local time. it's a sunday there. for us it's a little earlier. near 4:45 eastern. we'll take a short break and be right back. chantix is proven to help you quit. with chantix you can keep smoking at first and ease into quitting so when the day arrives, you'll be more ready to kiss cigarettes goodbye. when you try to quit smoking, with or without chantix, you may have nicotine withdrawal symptoms. stop chantix and get help right away if you have changes in behavior or thinking, aggression, hostility, depressed mood, suicidal thoughts or actions, seizures, new or worse heart or blood vessel problems, sleepwalking, or life-threatening allergic and skin reactions. decrease alcohol use. use caution driving or operating machinery. tell your doctor if you've had mental health problems. the most common side effect is nausea. talk to your doctor about chantix. with this one little nexgard chew

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on to north korean soil an the demille tarized zone. can womkim jong-un. both north korea and the united states meeting in the dmz. let's go to nbc's correspondent who was there in seoul, south korea covering the president and his visit there. what's been the readout from where you're at there, josh? >> reporter: well, richard, here a lot of the folks are focused on the fact that the accomplishment that both president trump and kim jong-un cited today seem to be cosmetic. they're the aesthetic things, talking about potential visits between the two leaders to washington and pyongyang. talking about restarting talks that had been taking place in the past and had stalled. the fact of of the matter is, when it comes to the nuclear issue, the differences between the countries are pretty well hashed out at this point. we didn't hear either of the

leaders talk about any specific progress on those. we didn't hear them, for instance talk about narrowing the definition of what denuke learization needs to mean or what, if all facility of the north korean nuclear program would be addressed by a nuclear deal. i think that for national security officials who have been skeptical about the value of having this photo opportunity absent some type of concrete progress, they're going to be looking for the two nations to relatively quickly come up with some specifics that show that on the actual difficult to resolve issues that they're coming to a closer understanding as opposed to simply restarting talks with essentially the same teams of negotiators, at least on the united states side that had already been working on this issue for some time. >> let me get over to victor cha.

laying out in terms of the reporting in seoul, south korea, where are we in terms of the duration of the way the united states has worked to disarm north korea. let's say over the scope of 20 years, is this chapter any more bright and shiny compared to the last two or three chapters where we were watching how the united states, north korea, whether in bilateral or multilateral negotiations, what was working well and what wasn't. are we in a shinier period right now? >> reporter: i wouldn't say that we're if a shinier period. there aren't very many shinier periods when it comes to north korea. but in the past, what has been done is agreements were made incrementally first to freeze north korea's nuclear operations in return for energy compensation from the united states and other partners. and then eventually moving from

that sort of freeze stage to a stage of denuclearization where north korea would offer an inventory of all their programs as a first step towards denuclearization and removal. we never got to that declaration phase either in the agreement in the clinton administration or the agreement i worked on during the george w. bush administration. what's different now is president trump -- i should say in both of those other cases there was never talk of a real summit between the two -- between the north korean leader an the u.s. president until we were much further down the road. so it was meant to be the reward at the end of the negotiation. president trump has taken a very different approach, which is to use the summits themselves as a way to try to get to know the north korean leader, but also to try to make progress that would

go even faster than what was done in the previous two agreements. so i think you can say he's been halfway successful because he's clearly managed to establish at least in his own mind a relationship with the north korean leader. but it has not caused a faster pace to any dee nnuclearization agreement. if anything -- i think this effort by trump to try to really get to know and gain the trust of the north korean leader is quite interesting if you watch the body language. for example, one of the things i noticed when they were sitting down in freedom house, when the president reaches out to shake kim's hand, the president, he really reaches out and shakes his hand and directly into kim's eyes. kim completely averts the president's gaze.

he stares off into the distance somewhere. you can see with all of his body language, trump is trying really hard to gain the north korean leader's trust to get him to try to do the right thing. even though they're meeting and smiling, you see little things like that where it looks like the north korean leader is not reciprocating. >> it's interesting. watching that very video, i'm not sure we can put it up again, sitting down inside of freedom house side by side. when the president is looking over at kim jong-un, kim jong-un repeatedly looking away but nodding his head but not giving him the equal amount of eye contact. i don't know if we have that. this is what we're talking about. final word to richard engel. our chief foreign correspondent here. in the minute and a half, richard, how would you sum up what we went through today and by all means, if you want to comment on what victor cha was commenting upon, which is the way the president was trying to

get iceye contact, not necessary the same with kim jong-un during this little sit-down here. >> reporter: what did we see here today? we saw a lot of political theater, we saw some history. i think we saw kim jong-un in a totally uncomfortable environment. he was welcomed absolutely into president trump's space. seemed to be a bit overwhelmed by it. this is not a leader used to being surrounded by a press scrum that is doing things improvisationally. sitting in a chair, having questions fired at him. this was president trump's show. president trump asked for this meeting. he asked for it in an unconventional way over twitter. kim jong-un showed up and went along with it. i think that does show a great deal about how the two leaders have a degree of trust. they brought their family members with them.

that is all positive. it is certainly unusual, but it's not like the status quo between north and south korea and the united states was a good -- we'll see where it goes from here. it was certainly unusual. >> richard engel live at the dmz. hans nichols there in seoul, south korea. victor cha as well. it's a good thing we're saying good-bye. victor cha, thank you. appreciate your help with this special breaking coverage coming out of seoul, south korea. the president and his historic visit, a cross into north korea. protect your pet with the #1 name in flea and tick protection. frontline plus. trusted by vets for nearly 20 years.

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