As military and intelligence officials in Washington brace for North Korea's threatened "Christmas gift" to the U.S., President Donald Trump told reporters on Tuesday that perhaps the DPRK will send him something nice — a new vase, he suggested, instead of a missile.

The president's remarks come at a moment of high tension between the U.S. and North Korea, with just one week remaining until DPRK leader Kim Jong Un's self-declared deadline for negotiations with Washington, and seemingly no end in sight to a months-long diplomatic stalemate between the two countries.