Trump praises Kim Jong Un as 'strong,' 'funny,' 'smart' and a 'great negotiator'
U.S. President Donald Trump has complimented North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after their Singapore summit as a “strong guy” and a “great negotiator,” and argued his once-fiery rhetoric directed toward Kim worked, Fox News reports.
“He’s got a very good personality, he’s funny, and he’s very, very smart,” Trump said of Kim in an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity that aired Tuesday night. “He’s a great negotiator, and he’s a very strategic kind of a guy.”
The president said he and Kim “got along very well” from “the beginning” of the summit.
That’s in stark contrast to just a few months ago, when the president dismissively referred to Kim as “Little Rocket Man,” and warned North Korea that it “will be met with fire and the fury like the world has never seen” if it provoked the United States with its nuclear program.
But Trump told Hannity he thought his tough style paved the way for Tuesday’s summit. “I think without the rhetoric, we wouldn’t have been here,” Trump said. “I really believe that.”
“His country has to be denuked, and he understood that, he fully understood it,” Trump said. “He didn’t fight it.”
Trump also said in the interview he believed the North Korean leader would start to work toward dismantling his country’s nuclear program “virtually immediately.”
“We want to denuke the entire peninsula,” Trump said.
The U.S. president also said it’s possible Kim will make a trip to Washington in the future.
“I think at the right time, he’ll absolutely be coming to the White House, yes,” he said.
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