US President Donald Trump has cut short an interview with CBS after being asked about claims former President Barack Obama wiretapped his campaign.

The fireworks with CBS anchor John Dickerson came at the end of a two-part interview with Mr Trump, the first airing on Face the Nation on Sunday.

Mr Trump and Dickerson were standing in the Oval Office when the conversation turned to Mr Trump’s accusation — without evidence — that predecessor President Obama had wiretapped him.

Dickerson reminded the president he had called President Obama “sick” and “bad”.

“You can take it any way you want,” Mr Trump said.

“I have my own opinions. You can have your own opinions.”

Dickerson replied: “I want to know your opinions. You’re the President of the United States.”

Mr Trump then moved toward his desk and signalled the end of the interview.

“OK, it’s enough,” he said. “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

Dickerson, appearing on CBS This Morning on Monday, said: “It was pretty clear that I was to escort myself out or I would be moved along.”

Watch the tense moments with CBS

The network showed no hard feelings when it broadcast its morning show live from the White House.

Dickerson later travelled on Air Force One and talked to Mr Trump as he was going to a rally.

I’d be ‘honoured’ to meet Kim

Meanwhile, the White House has rushed to qualify Mr Trump’s statement that he’d gladly meet Kim Jong Un, a day after he praised the North Korean leader for his intelligence. 

In an interview with Bloomberg News on Tuesday morning (AEST), Mr Trump said he would meet Kim “under the right circumstances”.

“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honoured to do it,” he said.

He added “under the right circumstances I would meet with him”.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer said clearly the conditions for a meeting between Mr Trump and Kim weren’t appropriate, and the US would need to see North Korea’s provocative behaviour “ratcheted down immediately”.

Mr Spicer said Washington wanted to see North Korea end its provocative behaviour immediately.

“Clearly conditions [for a meeting] are not there right now,” he added.

In a taped interview broadcast Sunday US time on CBS’s Face the Nation, the President offered praise for Kim Jong-Un’s political resilience, if not his sanity.

“People are saying, ‘Is he sane?’ I have no idea,” Mr Trump said.

Mr Trump said despite North Korea’s latest failed rocket launch, Pyongyang would eventually develop better missiles, and “we can’t allow it to happen”.

Declining to discuss the possibility of military action, Mr Trump described the world’s diplomacy with North Korea as “a chess game”

“I just don’t want people to know what my thinking is,” he said.

Tensions with North Korea have escalated recently as American and other intelligence agencies have suggested the country was readying a possible nuclear test.

The Trump administration has said all options, including a military strike, are on the table.

– with AAP