Children sit next to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games' official mascots, a white tiger Soohorang, for the Olympics, and black bear Bandabi, right, for Paralympics, near Seoul Plaza Ice Rink in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018. South Korea on Tuesday offered high-level talks with rival North Korea to find ways to cooperate on next month's Winter Olympics in the South.
Children sit next to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games' official mascots, a white tiger Soohorang, for the Olympics, and black bear Bandabi, right, for Paralympics, near Seoul Plaza Ice Rink in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018. South Korea on Tuesday offered high-level talks with rival North Korea to find ways to cooperate on next month's Winter Olympics in the South. Ahn Young-joon AP Photo
Children sit next to the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympic Games' official mascots, a white tiger Soohorang, for the Olympics, and black bear Bandabi, right, for Paralympics, near Seoul Plaza Ice Rink in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2018. South Korea on Tuesday offered high-level talks with rival North Korea to find ways to cooperate on next month's Winter Olympics in the South. Ahn Young-joon AP Photo

National Politics

The Latest: Trump says his 'nuclear button' is bigger

The Associated Press

January 02, 2018 08:14 PM

UPDATED 6 MINUTES AGO

WASHINGTON

The Latest on President Donald Trump and North Korea (all times local):

7:50 p.m.

My nuclear button is bigger — and better — than your nuclear button.

That's the message from President Donald Trump to North Korea's Kim Jong Un.

Never miss a local story.

Sign up today for unlimited digital access to our website, apps, the digital newspaper and more.

SUBSCRIBE NOW

Trump is tweeting in response to Kim's declaration earlier this week that he has a button for nuclear weapons on his table and the entire U.S. mainland is now within strike range.

Trump asks if someone from Kim's "depleted and food starved regime" can "please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

Trump does not actually have a nuclear button on his desk. The nuclear "football" is carried by a rotating group of military officers everywhere the president goes.

__

4 p.m.

President Donald Trump is sounding open to the possibility of an inter-Korean dialogue after North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made a rare overture toward South Korea in a New Year's address.

But U.S. officials are also voicing skepticism about Kim's intentions and repeating the demand that the North give up its nukes.

Using his derisive nickname for Kim, Trump says: "Rocket man now wants to talk to South Korea for first time. Perhaps that is good news, perhaps not - we will see!"

  Comments