President Donald Trump said Sunday that he told Secretary of State Rex Tillerson he's "wasting his time" trying to negotiate with North Korea on its nuclear program, a day after Tillerson acknowledged for the first time that the U.S. is communicating with Pyongyang.
"I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man," Trump said in a Twitter post, using his pejorative nickname for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!"
Trump, who repeatedly said military options are possible to deal with North Korea's expanding nuclear weapons program, made the comments after Tillerson said the U.S. is testing Pyongyang's appetite for negotiations.
"We are probing, so stay tuned," Tillerson said Saturday in Beijing. "We can talk to them, we do talk to them directly, through our own channels," adding that the U.S. has "a couple, three channels open to Pyongyang."
Trump hasn't said whether he has told Tillerson to stop negotiations with North Korea.
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(Nick Wadhams contributed to this report.)
