Donald Trump has dismissed concerns about the widely condemned human rights record of the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, praising him as a “tough guy”, a “smart guy” and a “great negotiator”....Donald Trump admires many dictators, but look at the specifics in his praise of Kim Jong Un. It's not just that Kim is an effective tyrant -- it's that he attained his position after taking over the family business from his father, at the age of 27.
Speaking in a wood-paneled office aboard Air Force One, [Bret] Baier [of Fox News] put it to the US president that Kim was “a killer. He’s executing people.”
Trump replied by praising Kim as a “tough guy. Hey, when you take over a country, tough country, with tough people, and you take it over from your father, I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have – if you can do that at 27 years old, that’s one in 10,000 could do that.”
When Trump was 27, in 1973, he was president of the company his father started; Dad was chairman of the board. That was the year Donald first got his name into The New York Times, in a front-page story about the Justice Department's anti-bias suit against the family business.
Kim Jong Un is 34 now. In 1980, the year Trump turned 34, he opened the renovated Grand Hyatt hotel, his first Manhattan property, and was working on Trump Tower. He was becoming nationally famous -- it was in 1980 that he first discussed running for president with an interviewer. (He said he wouldn't.)
I suspect Trump doesn't compare his own career arc to Kim's in quite that much detail -- he's not really a detail guy. But a young guy taking over from his father and becoming a disruptive force in the world? There's no question that Trump looks at Kim and sees himself. "I don’t care who you are, what you are, how much of an advantage you have – if you can do that at 27 years old, that’s one in 10,000 could do that" -- Trump's talking about Trump.
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