Conservative writer Bre Payton slammed President Trump’s comments about falling “in love” with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Monday, citing Pyongyang’s human rights record.
“I’ve long been disturbed with Donald Trump’s treatment towards the North Korean brutal dictator that we have,” Payton, a writer for The Federalist, told Hill.TV’s Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“I think that this is shocking and appalling. You know, I actually interviewed someone who defected from North Korea a couple of months ago who shared her story,” she continued.
“I think that throughout all of this we have to be honest about the really brutal human rights situation that’s going on there, and I think just ignoring that and talking about who you fell in love [with] is not the tone that we should be striking at all in any reality that we decide to live in,” she said.
Trump praised Kim at a campaign rally on Saturday, saying that he and the North Korean leader “fell in love.”
“I was really being tough and so was he,” Trump said. “And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love. No really. He wrote me beautiful letters.”
“They were great letters. And then we fell in love,” he continued.
The president’s comments come amid plans for a potential second summit between the two leaders.
Secretary of state Mike Pompeo accepted an invitation from Kim to visit Pyongyang this month to plan a second summit between the two leaders.
— Julia Manchester
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