US national security advisor John Bolton denied Sunday that last week's nuclear summit with North Korea was a failure, despite President Donald Trump coming home empty-handed.
A high-stakes second meeting to strike a nuclear disarmament deal between the North's leader Kim Jong Un and Trump broke up in disarray Thursday, without even a joint statement.
But Bolton told CBS's "Face the Nation" Trump's failure in getting commitments from Pyongyang on destroying its nuclear capability should be seen as "a success, defined as the president protecting and advancing American national interests."
The White House aide said the issue was whether North Korea would accept what the president called "the big deal" -- denuclearizing completely or something less, "which was unacceptable to us."
"So the president held firm to his view. He deepened his relationship with Kim Jong Un. I don't view it as a failure at all when American national interests are protected."
"Sometimes you have to walk and this was just one of those times," an unusually downcast Trump told reporters on Thursday, adding that he would "rather do it right than do it fast."
"He remains optimistic this is possible. Kim Jong Un himself said in our last meeting, you know, we're going to go through many stations before we achieve this deal. The meeting in Hanoi was one such station."
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