MIKE PENCE/NORTH KOREA/NUCLEAR/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “North Korea’s senior envoy for U.S. affairs renewed a threat to call off a planned summit with President Donald Trump and warned that Pyongyang could ‘make the U.S. taste an appalling tragedy it has neither experienced nor even imagined.’ In its most direct language aimed at Washington following a recent rapprochement between the two countries, Choe Son Hui, the North’s vice minister of foreign affairs, said if the June 12 talks were called off, the U.S. could instead face off with North Korea in a ‘nuclear-to-nuclear showdown.’ Ms. Choe’s statement, issued through official state media, called out Vice President Mike Pence, to whom she referred as ‘a political dummy.’ Ms. Choe’s release followed strongly worded statements last week from other senior North Korean officials aimed at U.S. national security adviser John Bolton and at the South Korean government of Moon Jae-in, who has pushed for dialogue with Pyongyang to avoid a nuclear standoff.”
-Jonathan Cheng, “North Korea Threatens to Call Off Summit, Calls Pence a ‘Political Dummy’,” The Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2018 10:34 pm