Trump Cozying Up to Murderous Thugs
In a stunning move Monday, President Donald Trump said he “would be honored” to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong un, whose title is the Supreme Leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), Chairman of the Workers’ Party of Korea.Â
“If it would be appropriate for me to meet with him, I would absolutely, I would be honored to do it,†Trump told Bloomberg News Monday in an Oval Office interview. “If it’s under the, again, under the right circumstances. But I would do that.â€
Kim has starved his own people, he has had journalists killed, he has threatened to blow the United States off the face of the earth, and that’s just for starters.Â
Trump’s remarks followed praise from Trump on Friday for one of the most dangerous and murderous thugs around the world. Kim Jong-un has killed at least hundreds of his people.
“He’s 27 years old,” Trump told Reuters. “His father dies, took over a regime. So say what you want, but that is not easy — especially at that age.â€
“I’m not giving him credit or not giving him credit,” Trump claimed, which, as The Washington Post notes, is exactly what he was doing, “I’m just saying that’s a very hard thing to do.”
On Sunday, Trump continued the love-fest.
“At a very young age, he was able to assume power,” Trump told CBS News. “A lot of people, I’m sure, tried to take that power away, whether it was his uncle or anybody else. And he was able to do it. So obviously, he’s a pretty smart cookie.”
Monday afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer was forced to try to defend the President’s praise of the tyrant.
“The President understands the threat that North Korea opposes,” Spicer said, presumably meaning to say “poses.”
“He will do whatever is necessary under the right circumstances to do whatever is necessary to protect our country from the threat that they pose,” Spicer insisted.
Spicer, trying to defend Trump’s outrageous and offensive remarks – it’s clear ABC News’ Jon Karl is almost angered – says that because Kim is “still a head of state, there’s a diplomatic piece to this.”
Trump has never shied away from saying what’s on his mind, diplomacy be damned.
The Washington Post notes that “Kim consolidated power by executing not just his uncle, but another estimated 140 or so senior officials in the North Korean government. Most recently, he is believed to be behind the assassination of his half brother Kim Jong Nam in Malaysia. It’s one thing to give Kim credit for staying in charge of a struggling nuclear power; it’s another to acknowledge the means by which he has accomplished this.”
“Imagine,” the Post’s Aaron Blake says, “if President Barack Obama had said he would be ‘honored’ to meet with then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad back in 2008. The feeding frenzy would have been swift, and it would have been led by Republicans.”
Trump’s own history of comments about authoritarian leaders make this less than shocking, of course. He has praised the late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein for killing terrorists without worrying about due process. He said the world would be “100 percent†better with Moammar Gaddafi in charge of Libya. He has of course praised Russian President Vladimir Putin. He retweeted a Mussolini quote. He congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently on growing his presidential powers. And he gave Egyptian President President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi the thumbs-up in a shift in U.S. policy.
Trump reportedly kept a book of Hitler’s speeches by his bedside.
Over the weekend, Trump invited murderous Philippines dictator Rodrigo Duterte to the White House.
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