Trump blames Cohen’s testimony for failure of Hanoi summit

Donald Trump has blamed the Democrats’ decision to interview his former lawyer Michael Cohen on the same day as a meeting with Kim Jong-un for the fact that the North Korea summit ended with no deal.

Trump and Kim met for the second time last week in Hanoi to try to negotiate a deal that would surrender some of North Korea's nuclear weapons arsenal in return for sanctions relief.

At the same time in Washington, former Trump aide Cohen was testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives' Oversight Committee, accusing Trump of ordering his personal attorney to make threats for him about 500 times over the last 10 years.

“For the Democrats to interview in open hearings a convicted liar & fraudster, at the same time as the very important Nuclear Summit with North Korea, is perhaps a new low in American politics and may have contributed to the ‘walk’,” the US president said on Twitter, referring to his decision to walk away from what he previously said was a bad deal with Kim. “Never done when a president is overseas. Shame!”

When asked about Cohen's testimony at a press conference on Thursday in Hanoi after Trump had abruptly decided to end the summit early, the president called the allegations "incorrect" and criticized the decision to have the hearing while he was away.

"I tried to watch as much as I could," Trump said. "I wasn't able to watch too much because I've been a little bit busy, but I think having a fake hearing like that and having it in the middle of this very important summit is really a terrible thing."

South Korean President Moon Jae-in called for officials to try to find a way to restart talks between the North and the United States.

The breakdown of the summit was a blow for Moon, who had hoped eased U.S. sanctions would help lead to a restart of inter-Korean projects including a factory park, key to his vision for a pan-peninsula economic community.