After enduring a full 25 hours without sleep, President Donald Trump continued to defend North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and his well-documented history of human rights violations on Tuesday, telling VOA’s Greta Van Susteren that Kim’s just “doing what he’s seen done.”
“He’s a rough guy. He has to be a rough guy or he has been a rough person,” Trump told Van Susteren. “But we got along very well. He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country.”
“But he’s starved them,” Van Susteren asserted, “He’s been brutal to them. He still loves his people?”
“Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it,” he said. “But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.”
During a press conference with reporters following the White House’s release of a joint-agreement between Kim and Trump committing to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Trump told reporters that he trusted Kim and said he was “talented” for running the country at such a young age.
“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 said.
