The schedule for President Trump and Kim Jong Un’s second day of meetings in Hanoi, Vietnam was abruptly changed Thursday.
Trump left the Metropole Hotel, where the summit took place, before 1:30 p.m. Vietnam time, or 1:30 a.m. Washington time — more than an hour before originally scheduled.
About 45 minutes before Trump left, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters in Vietnam that talks would wrap up earlier than expected.
Trump and Kim were originally supposed to hold a working lunch was canceled.
{mosads}The two leaders were also scheduled to participate in ceremony to sign a joint agreement. Sanders declined to say whether that ceremony would still happen, but it appears unlikely.
Trump’s press conference, originally scheduled for 4 p.m. Vietnam time, or 4 a.m. Washington time, will now be at 2 p.m., Sanders said.
Pool reporters who had been waiting in the dining room at the Metropole Hotel, where the summit is taking place, were originally told lunch had been delayed for 30 minutes. The table in the dining room was set with menus and name cards on chairs.
Then at about, 12:35 p.m. local time, reporters were told by a White House spokeswoman that “there has been a program change.”
Trump has been lowering expectations for the results of the summit even as he has touted his “very special relationship” with Kim. Trump has said repeatedly he is in “no rush” to get a denuclearization deal as long as North Korea refrains from nuclear and missile tests, saying at the top of the meetings Thursday that “speed is not important.”
Updated at 1:41 a.m.