U.S. President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo address a press conference after a meeting with the North Korean leader, in Hanoi, Vietnam, 28 February 2019. EPA

U.S. President Donald Trump held a press conference with hundreds of reporters in Hanoi, Vietnam, Thursday, after his historic talks with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un that ended without a deal. Below is a full rush transcript of the press conference.

>>Thank you prime minister and president of Vietnam. We're in Hanoi. It's an incredible city, and what's happened over the last 25 years has been incredible for the people of Vietnam, the job they've done, economic development. Really something special.

So I want to thank all of the people of Vietnam for having treated us so well. We have I think reasonably attractive news from Pakistan and India. They've been going at it, and we've been involved in trying to have them stop.

And we have some reasonably decent news. I think hopefully that's going to be coming to an end. It's been going on for a long time, decades and decades. There's a lot of dislike, unfortunately. So we've been in the middle trying to help them both out, see if we can get some organization and some peace, and I think probably that's going to be happening. We have Venezuela as you know has been very much in the news, and we're sending supplies. Supplies are getting through a little bit more. It's not easy. It's hard to believe somebody would say let's not do it.

What difference would that make except it's great for his people to let it get through. But we're sending a lot of supplies down to Venezuela. People are starving to death. And you would really think that the man in charge currently would let those supplies get through. We are getting them into some of the cities and some of the areas that need them most, and it's not an easy job. It's very difficult actually.

On North Korea we just left chairman Kim who had a really I think a very productive time. We thought and I thought and Secretary Pompeo felt that it wasn't a good thing to be signing anything. I'm going to let Mike speak about it, but we literally just we spent pretty much all day with Kim Jong-un, who is ― he's quite a guy and quite a character. And I think our relationship is very strong.

But at this time we had some options, and at this time we decided not to do any of the options, and we'll see where that goes. But it was ― it was a very interesting two days. And I think actually it was a very productive two days. But sometimes you have to walk. And this was just one of those times, and I'll let Mike speak to that for a couple of minutes, please.

>>Thank you, Mr. President. We had been working, our teams ― the team that that I brought to bear as well as the north Koreans for weeks so we could make a big step along the way towards what the two leaders had agreed to back in Singapore in June of last year. We made big progress, and indeed we made even more progress when the two leaders met over the last 24, 36 hours.

Unfortunately, we didn't get all the way that ultimately made sense for the United States of America. I think chairman Kim was hopeful that we would. We asked him to do more. He was unprepared to do that, but I'm optimistic. I hope our teams will get together in the days and weeks ahead and work out. It's a very complex problem. We have said since the beginning this would take time.

Our teams have gotten to know each other better. We know what some of the limits are and challenges are, and I think in the days and weeks ahead we can make progress so we can ultimately achieve what the world wants. I wish we could have gotten a little bit further, but I'm very optimistic that the progress that we made both in the runup to this summit as well as the progress that the two leaders made over these past two days put us in a position to get a really good outcome.

And the president and chairman Kim both felt good that they had made that progress, but couldn't quite get along the line any further to make a deal that would have been bigger at this point. I hope we'll do so in the weeks ahead. Thank you, Mr. President.

>>Major, please.

>>Has this process been more difficult than you thought, and was the north Korean demand for lifting of some sanctions the real sticking point here in that you did not want to do that and they did ―

>>It was about the sanctions.

>>Will there be a third summit, Mr. President?

>>Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn't do that. They were willing to denuke a large portion of the areas that we wanted, but we couldn't give up all of the sanctions for that, so we'll continue to work and we'll see. But we had to walk away from that particular suggestion. We had to walk away from that.

>>Will all the sanctions that are currently in existence remain, sir?

>>They're in place. I was watching as a lot of you folks over the weeks have said, oh, we've given up ― we haven't given up anything. And I think frankly we'll be good friends with chairman Kim and North Korea, and I think they have tremendous potential. I've been telling everybody they have tremendous potential, unbelievable potential, and we're going to see. But it was about sanctions. They wanted sanctions lifted but they weren't willing to do an area we wanted. They were willing to give us areas but not the ones we wanted. John?

>>As we know, I mean there's an incredibly complex set of issues that are at play here in terms of lifting sanctions and what denuclearization is. Did you get any resistance towards what ― there's a line of thinking that he wants to keep some nukes. I mean, would you allow him to do that?

>>I want to comment ― excuse me, I don't want to comment on that exactly, but he has a certain vision and it's not exactly our vision but it's a lot closer than it was a year ago. And I think, you know, eventually we'll get there. But for this particular visit we decided that we had to walk, and we'll see what happens. Okay?

>>Look, we have a gentleman nobody's ever heard. Sean Hannity, what are you doing here Sean Hannity? Should we let him do a question?
John, go ahead.

>>So if he wants the sanctions completely off and you want more on denuclearization, how can you bridge that gap?

>>With time I think it'll be bridged at a certain point, but there is a gap. We have to have sanctions and he wants to denuke, but he wants to just do areas that are less important than the areas that we want. We know the country very well, believe it or not. We know every inch of that country, and we have to get what we have to get. Because that's a big give. Yes, Sean, please.

>>I work in radio TV. Mr. President, thank you. Mr. Secretary, thank you. Mr. President, if you could elaborate a little bit more. We have some history. President Reagan walked away, a lot of condemnation at the time, and it ended up working out very well in the end for the United States. Was this mostly your decision, and what message would you want to send chairman Kim as he's listening to this press conference about the future and your relationship?

>>Well, Sean, I don't want to say it was my decision because what purpose is that? I want to keep the relationship, and we will keep the relationship. We'll see what happens over the next period of time. But as you know we've got our hostages back. There's no more testing.

And one of the things importantly that chairman Kim promised me last night is regardless he's not going to do testing of rockets and nuclear ― not going to do testing. So, you know, I trust him, and I take him at his word. I hope that's true. But in the meantime we'll be talking. Mike will be speaking with his people.

He's also developed a very good relationship with the people ― really the people representing North Korea. I haven't spoken to prime minister Abe yet.

I haven't spoken to president moon, South Korea. But we will, and we'll tell them it's a process and it's moving along, but we felt it wasn't appropriate to sign an agreement today. We could have, I just felt it wasn't appropriate. Jonathan?

>>Thank you, Mr. President. Two questions if I may. First, did you learn anything new about chairman Kim through this meeting? And secondly, of course, while this was going on and the drama back in Washington, your former lawyer Michael Cohen who worked for you for ten years, his office right by yours at trump tower, he called you a liar, a con man, a racist. What's your response to Michael Cohen?

>>Well, it's incorrect. And it's very interesting because I tried to watch as much as I could. 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. They could have made it two days later or next week, and it would have been even better. They would have had more time. But having it during this very important summit is sort of incredible.

And he lied a lot, but it was very interesting because he didn't lie about one thing, he said no collusion with the Russian hoax. And I said I wonder why he didn't lie about that too like he did about everything else. I was actually impressed that he didn't say, well, I think there was collusion for this reason or that. He didn't say that. He said no collusion, and I was a little impressed by that, frankly. He could have gone all out.

He only went about 95% instead of 100%. But the fact is there is no collusion, and I call it the witch hunt. This should never happen to another president. It's so bad for our country, so bad. You look at this whole hoax, and I call it the Russian witch hunt and I now add the word hoax. It's very bad for our country.

I was impressed with the fact ― the most important question up there was the one on collusion, and he said he saw no collusion, so we'll see what happens. But it was pretty shameful, I think. Yes, ma'am, please.

>>President Trump?

>>How about one of you instead of three.

>>Actually I do have the microphone, I guess so ―

>>Excuse me, excuse me. Person in the front go ahead. No, no not you. Yeah, we'll get to you, thank you.

>>Thank you, president trump. What was the atmosphere like when you walked away from the negotiation table and ―

>>I think it was very good, very friendly. This wasn't a walk away like you get up and walk out. No, this was very friendly. We shook hands.

We ― you know, there's a warmth that we have and I hope that stays. I think it will. But we're positioned to do something very special. This has been going on for many decades. This isn't me. This should have been solved during many presidential runs, and, you know, people talked about it. They never did anything. I get a kick out of so many people from past administrations telling me how to negotiate when they were there in some cases for eight years, they did but I think the relationship was very warm, and when we walked away it was a very friendly walk. Mike, you might want to speak to that for a second.

>>No, I agree. I talked with my counter parts as well. We hope we do more, but everyone's very focused on how we continue to build on this. We were certainly closer today than 36 hours ago and we're closer than we were a month or two before that. So real progress was made. I think everybody hoped we could do this better, but the departure was with an agreement we continue to work on what has been an incredibly difficult problem. Everyone walked away in that spirit.

>>And may I add you and chairman Kim are from very political systems. You are from different generations ―

>>It's a very different system. I would say that's true. We just like each other. We have a good relationship. Yeah, it's a different system to put it mildly, but we like each other. Good relationship. Go ahead in the back. Go ahead.

>>Mr. President, do you think it was premature to have held the summit when all these things had not been tied down? I mean the white house schedule last night it said signing agreement today, and wonder as a follow-up question whether you could sketch out what the next few months look like.

>>You always have to be prepared to walk. I could have signed an agreement today, and then you people would have said, oh, what a terrible deal, what a terrible thing he did. No, you have to be prepared to walk, and there was a potential we could have signed something ― I could have 100% signed something today. We actually had papers ready to be signed, but it just wasn't appropriate. I'd much rather do it right than do it fast. Yes, please, go ahead. Go ahead. Go. First, go. Yeah? You have to speak up.

>>I'm a reporter from south Korea and I appreciate your effort to ad denuclearization on the Korean peninsula, and could you elaborate the various ways you discussed with chairman Kim to denuclearization?

>>We discussed many ways and the denuclearization is a very important word, has become a very well-used word. And a lot of people don't know what it means, but to me it's pretty obvious we have to get rid of the nukes. I think he's going to have a chance to have one of most successful countries rapidly on Earth, too. If you think of it you have on one side Russia and China and on the other you have South Korea and you're surrounded by water. And among the most beautiful shorelines in the world. It's tremendous potential in North Korea, and I think he's going to lead it to a very important thing economically. I think it's going to be an absolute economic power. Yes, go ahead, please. Go ahead.

>>David Sanger from "The new York Times." Six months ago when you spoke or eight months ago in Singapore you said if you didn't have something in six months we should come back and ask you about it. In that time you have seen chairman Kim increase the number of missiles he's produced and continue to produce more nuclear material, and that's been a pressure point on you because he's showing the arsenals getting larger while this is going on.

>>Well, some people, David, are saying that and some people are denying that. They have shots from above, way above. And some people are saying that and some people aren't. But I could have taken that out today. But I think you and others would have said we didn't get enough for what we'd be giving up. And, you know, don't forget we're partners with a lot of countries on this, if you think about it with the sanctions. We have a whole big partnership with the united nations and many countries including Russia, China and others. And then of course South Korea is very important to this whole thing, and Japan. I don't want to do something that is going to violate the trust that we built-up. We have a very strong partnership.

>>So can you just give us a little more detail? Did you get into the question of actually dismantling the complex?

>>Yes.

>>And did he seem willing ultimately to take all of that out?

>>Totally.

>>He just wants all the sanctions off first.

>>He wants the sanctions off, and as you know there's plenty left after that. I just felt it wasn't ― Mike and I spent a long time negotiating and talking about it to ourselves, and I felt that particular ― as you know that facility while very big, it wasn't enough to do what we were doing.

>>So he was willing to do but you wanted to do more than that.

>>There's other things you haven't talked about that we found that the people didn't know about.

>>Including the uranium enrichment plan.

>>Exactly. And we brought many points up. I think they were surprised we knew. If we did the one level and gave up all of that leverage that's been taking a long time to build ―

>>So you're not willing to take off the ―

>>David, I want to take off the sanctions so badly because I want that country to grow. That country has so much potential but we had to give up that deal.

>>There are also timing and sequencing issues associated with that as well that we didn't quite get across that finish line as well. Even that facility in all of its scope which is important for sure, still leaves missiles and war heads and weapons systems. So there's a lot of other elements we couldn't get to.