President Trump on North Korea: 'I think It's Going to Work Out'

President Trump expressed optimism on diplomacy with North Korea at a rally in South Carolina for Gov. Henry McMaster Monday evening.

“Now we have a good chemistry — we have a good chemistry and I think it’s going to work out,” he said of his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

He acknowledged it could take some time, but noted that North Korea has taken positive steps after his historic meeting with Kim in Singapore earlier this month.

“It’s a period of time, it takes awhile, it takes a long time — not easy, not easy, they’ve been doing this for many many decades and not that easy, but they took down some signs, anti-United States signs all over North Korea. They’re down, they took them down,” he said.

When Trump first took office, there was a real threat of going to war with North Korea.

“Before I took over this office, there was a really good chance we were going to war with North Korea. You could have lost millions and millions of people,” he said. “So, I got a bad hand with North Korea because that should have been done years ago.”

“The world is going to be a much safer place. And North Korea is going to be a much better place, so it’s really something.”

Trump recalled the doubt over whether the June 12 summit between him and Kim was going to happen.

“Five, six months ago, it was in the Oval Office, I’ll never forget it. And these guys were saying, unbelievable, unbelievable,” he said.

But he said he sensed a turning point came when Kim decided to go to the Winter Olympics in South Korea.

“I said, ‘That’s a big difference from the dialogue we were having,'” he said. “It turned out to be a massive success and President Moon of South Korea gives us the credit.”