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Russian officials made a secret proposal to North Korea last fall aimed at resolving deadlocked negotiations with the Trump administration over its nuclear weapons program, said U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

In exchange for dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Moscow offered the country a nuclear power plant.

The Russian offer, which intelligence officials became aware of in late 2018, marks a new attempt by Moscow to intervene in the high-stakes nuclear talks as it reasserts itself into a string of geopolitical flash points from the Middle East to South Asia to Latin America. Its latest bid is expected to unsettle Chinese and U.S. officials wary of granting Moscow an economic foothold on the Korean Peninsula.

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America's top intelligence official on Tuesday publicly broke with President Donald Trump on several critical foreign policy fronts, saying North Korea is not likely to give up its nuclear weapons, Iran is not yet seeking a nuclear weapon and the Islamic State terrorist group remains a forceful presence in Iraq and Syria.

The remarks by Dan Coats, the U.S. director of national intelligence, underscored how out of step Trump's pronouncements on major national security issues often are with the rest of the government he leads, including intelligence agencies that he has long scorned.

The divergence on Tuesday was perhaps most notable in the case of North Korea, which Trump has said no longer poses a nuclear threat to the United States.

"We currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its [weapons of mass destruction] capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capabilities because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival," Coats said during a hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

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Coats also offered views on Iran's nuclear capabilities that appeared at odds with the president.

Trump and his top aides have taken a hard line on Iran, implying that the Islamist-led country still poses a nuclear threat despite its adherence to a 2015 accord that put curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. Trump withdrew the U.S. from that nuclear deal, and has reimposed sanctions, although other international allies have stayed committed to the pact.

During the hearing, Coats said Iran isn't taking any steps to make a nuclear weapon. “We do not believe Iran is currently undertaking the key activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device," he said.

CIA Director Gina Haspel, who also spoke at the hearing, said Tehran, "at the moment, technically they're in compliance" with the deal.

But Coats also noted that Iranian officials have “publicly threatened to push the boundaries” of the nuclear deal if it did not see any benefits from it. He also alleged that Iran has sponsored terrorism in both Europe and the Middle East, while also backing proxy militias such as the Houthis in Yemen and Shiite armed groups in Iraq.

Coats' remarks on the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, were also glaringly out of sync with some of Trump's claims about the status of the terrorist group.

The president and some in his administration have since said that the troop withdrawal process won't be immediate, but they've continued to insist that the group has been defeated on the ground.

Critics, while acknowledging the Islamic State's near-total territorial losses, warn that the group still lives as an insurgent force, and that withdrawing American troops will give them a vacuum to regain land.

Coats appeared to agree with those critics. He told senators that the Islamic State "very likely will continue to pursue external attacks from Iraq and Syria against regional and Western adversaries, including the United States."

"ISIS is intent on resurging and still commands thousands of fighters in Iraq and Syria," Coats said, adding that the terror group "will seek to exploit Sunni grievances, societal instability, and stretched security forces to regain territory in Iraq and Syria in the long term."

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President Trump lashed out at U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, calling them “extremely passive and naive” about the “dangers of Iran” and pushing back on their assessments of the Islamic State and North Korea during a congressional hearing.

In tweets, Trump offered what amounted to a rebuttal of testimony on global threats provided to the Senate on Tuesday by a panel of top officials from his administration.

Trump was most pointed in his pushback on the assessment of Iran. During testimony, officials said that Iran was not trying to build a nuclear weapon and was in compliance with an agreement forged during the Obama administration from which Trump subsequently withdrew the United States.

“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran. They are wrong!” Trump wrote. “They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran.”

Trump added: “Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”

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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that new testimony from top U.S. intelligence officials could "undermine" President Trump's ability to declare a national emergency for constructing a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

"The fact that none of the intel chiefs brought up a threat at the southern border as being one of the most pressing threats facing the country, that could be Exhibit A in a challenge to any kind of a declaration of a national emergency,” Schiff said on MSNBC, a day after Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and CIA Director Gina Haspel testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee about global threats to the U.S.

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The vast majority of Senate Republicans backed Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday in a rebuke of President Trump's rationale for withdrawing U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, voting to declare that Islamic State's continued operations in both countries poses a serious threat to the United States.

The measure was presented as an amendment to a greater Middle East policy bill that has yet to pass the Senate and will face challenges in the House, particularly due to a provision regarding Israel-focused boycotts. But the vote is nonetheless an unmistakable sign of Republicans' growing frustrations with the president, particularly when it comes to some of the decisions he has made as commander in chief.

Last month, the president announced that he would be withdrawing American military personnel from Syria, stating in a Twitter post that: "We have defeated ISIS in Syria, my only reason for being there during the Trump presidency."

The backlash from Republicans was immediate and has remained consistent, as even some of the president's closest allies have warned him against the dangers of withdrawing from battlefields where the United States has made gains, but by no means has expunged Al Qaeda, Islamic State and their affiliates.

While the amendment recognizes the work that has been done to push back such terror organizations, the amendment specifically names Al Qaeda and Islamic State as "a global threat, which merits increased international contributions to the counterterrorism, diplomatic and stabilization efforts underway in Syria and Afghanistan." It also notes that "withdrawal of the United States forces from the ongoing fight against these groups ... could allow terrorists to regroup, destabilize critical regions, and create vacuums that could be filled byt Iran or Russia, to the detriment of United States interests and those of our allies."

Several Republican senators have warned that Kurdish fighters who have operated in Syria would be left particularly vulnerable if the United States withdraws.

While the Senate vote does not carry the weight of law or prevent the president from pursuing his plans, it puts congressional Republicans on the record as being at odds with Trump's Middle East policy. In the past, the Senate has backed similar bipartisan measures expressing support for NATO in the face of Trump's criticisms and threats to withdraw from the alliance. Earlier this month, the House overwhelmingly passed a measure to prevent Trump from using any federal funds to execute a withdrawal from NATO.