A Quote by Ben Rhodes
By heralding President Xi Jinping's accession to permanent leadership, soliciting Vladimir Putin's reentry into the Group of Seven, and declaring that Kim Jong Un is 'beloved by his people,' Trump legitimizes the very behavior that U.S. presidents opposed for decades.
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President Obama is in China now for an economic summit in Beijing. The president wore a traditional purple silk shirt along with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. That's after they taught Putin how to put a shirt ON.
The accession to power in Pyongyang of Kim Jong Un, son of Kim Jong Il and grandson of Kim Il Sung, is a unique achievement in world politics.
If Xi Jinping is the world's most powerful man, conventional wisdom puts Vladimir Putin a close second. He's made his own bare-chested virility synonymous with a resurgent Russia.
Trump loves dictators. He's got kind of a personal Mount Rushmore, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Moammar Gadhafi and Saddam Hussein. And last and most dangerously, Donald Trump believes - Donald Trump believes that the world will be safer if more nations have nuclear weapons.
The Trump campaign management team had to be fired a month or so ago because of those shadowy connections with pro-Putin forces. Governor Pence made the odd claim, he said inarguably Vladimir Putin is a better leader than President Obama. Vladimir Putin has run his economy into the ground. He persecutes LGBT folks and journalists. If you don't know the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you got to go back to a fifth-grade civics class.
In 2014, we were opposing President Xi Jinping. Five years later, we are opposing Emperor Xi Jinping.
So [Vladimir] Putin is a mess. He's committed all sort of murderous thuggery, and I am opposed to the way Putin conducts himself in world affairs, and I hope that the president also wants to show moral leadership about this issue.
Before Kim Jong Il died, it wasn't like one day Kim Jong Un took over. Kim Jong Il made sure his son was known to the North Korean people and it was clear that he was the next heir. He prepared him for at least three years beforehand.
In Donald Trump, you have somebody who praises Vladimir Putin all the time. America should really wonder about a President Trump, who had a campaign manager with ties to Putin, pro- Putin elements in the Ukraine, who had to be fired for that reason. They should wonder - when Donald Trump is sitting down with Vladimir Putin, is it going to be America's bottom line or is it going to be Donald Trump's bottom line that he's going to be worried about with all of his business dealings?
[Vladimir Putin] complimented him. That led Donald Trump to then compliment Vladimir Putin and to defend Vladimir Putin's actions in a number of places around the world.
As for Kim Jong-un, first of all, he tried to kill his half brother in 2012, and according to South Koreans, the half brother, Kim Jong-nam actually wrote a letter to Kim Jong-un pleading with him not to do that anymore.
We deal, unfortunately, every single day with leaders of countries who are responsible for actions we find either objectionable or abhorrent, whether it's Vladimir Putin, whether it's Xi Jinping, whether it's any others on a long list of people I can name. But we find ways to deal with them.
Kim Il Sung prepared Kim Jong Il for decades to be his successor and made it very clear from the beginning, 'This is my son and he's going to lead the country' and that took more than 10 years - almost 20 years.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has been awarded the highest rank in the country's military. The decision was praised by everyone from Parliamentary leader Kim Jong Un to opposition leader Kim Jong Un.
It's clear the relationship between China and North Korea has hardly ever been worse. Kim Jong-un has never been to Beijing in his leadership. The Chinese press are saying some amazingly negative things about the north, and about Kim Jong-un. So - so they are weighing in, and they are bringing greater pressure. Whether it will be enough I think remains to be seen.
America should really wonder about a President Trump, who had a campaign manager with ties to Putin, pro-putin elements in the Ukraine who had to be fired for that reason. They should wonder when Donald Trump is sitting down with Vladimir Putin, is it going to be America's bottom line, or is it going to be Donald Trump's bottom line he's going to be worried about with all of his business dealings. This would be solved if Donald Trump would release his tax returns as he's told the American public that he would do.
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