Former US President Donald Trump recently said that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wants him to win the presidential race for the White House in 2024. He made this remark during the final night of the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee. According to a report, Mr Trump said, “But when we get back (to the White House), I will be in harmony with him.” Newsweek,
“He would also like to see me back. I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth,” he said, citing his conversations with the North Korean leader and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, presenting himself as the ideal candidate to handle geopolitical problems involving North Korea and Russia and to end conflicts.
He also said in his speech that although he had “stopped missile launches by North Korea” while in office, the country is now “making moves again.”
During his presidency, Mr Trump often referred to Kim Jong Un as “Little Rocket Man”, a nickname that highlights Kim’s ambitions for nuclear weapons and missile testing. Even though there was initially hostility and heated confrontation, Mr Trump eventually adopted a more diplomatic approach.
In 2018, following his ‘Rocket Man’ comment, Donald Trump reportedly sent a signed CD of Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ song to US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who was on a visit to North Korea to push forward denuclearisation talks with Kim Jong-un and set a timeline on the denuclearisation process.
Speaking on the ‘Full Send Podcast’, Mr Trump said that this gift for Mr Kim was instrumental in taking the relations between North and South Korea in a positive direction. “I asked him, ‘Have you ever heard the song Rocket Man?’ when I was with him. He said, ‘No, no, no,'” Mr Trump recalled. “Have you ever heard of Elton John? ‘No, no, no.’ I actually gave him the song ‘Rocket Man,’ which is a very good song by Elton John,” he added.
“I gave them a tape … I didn’t show them clearly that it was made in South Korea. The record said ‘South Korea.’ I said, ‘Take it off.’ We cut it off with a chisel,” Mr Trump joked.
This CD paved the way for his controversial meeting with the dictator in 2019. After this meeting, Donald Trump became the first US President to cross the border of North Korea.
Meanwhile, in the podcast, Mr Trump also called Kim Jong-Un a “smart, cunning and ruthless individual”. “But I knew him very well,” he said, according to Newsweek. “And I think if Obama had stayed on or Hillary Clinton had become president, we would have had a nuclear war,” Mr Trump added.
