He liked him in the first five seconds
by digby
And I think he genuinely did. He’s a ruthless, vicious dictator who killed his uncle and his brother as well as hundreds of others to consolidate his power. What’s not to like?
A smattering of quotes:
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say his people love him. Just a few months ago you accused him of starving his people. And listen, here’s the rub. Kim is a brutal dictator. He runs a police state, forced starvation, labor camps. He’s assassinated members of his own family. How do you trust a killer like that?
TRUMP: George, I’m given what I’m given, okay? I mean, this is what we have, and this is where we are, and I can only tell you from my experience, and I met him, I’ve spoken with him, and I’ve met him. … he wants to do the right thing…
“He trusts me, I believe, I really do. I think he trusts me, and I trust him.”
“Over my lifetime, I’ve done a lot of deals with a lot of people, and sometimes the people that you most distrust turn out to be the most honorable ones, and the people that you do trust they are not the honorable ones.”
“We have developed a very special bond.”
“Anybody that takes over a situation like he did, at 26 years of age, and is able to run it, and run it tough — I don’t say he was nice or I don’t say anything about it — he ran it.”
“I believe it’s a rough situation over there. There’s no question about it.”
Donald Trump on human rights abuses in North Korea: “Rough situation over there. It’s rough. It’s rough in a lot of places, by the way. Not just there.”
Reporter: You at that point said that North Korea has more brutally oppressed its people than any regime on Earth. Do you still believe that's the case?
Trump: I believe it's a rough situation over there. It's rough in a lot of places, by the way, not just there. pic.twitter.com/PmlFAbLTiE— NBC News (@NBCNews) June 12, 2018
I’m not saying that he should have treated Kim Jong Un like an enemy on the scale of a Justin Trudeau or an Angela Merkel. But going out of his way to make excuses for him does seem a teensy bit excessive.
I think he sees himself in this fine young dictator.
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