U.S. President Donald Trump’s attorney Rudy Giuliani said North Korean leader Kim Jong Un begged on his “hands and knees” after the president abruptly cancelled a planned summit in Singapore.
Speaking at a business conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, Giuliani said the president’s hard line with Kim forced the leader to soften his stance on meeting with Trump.
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“Kim Jong Un got back on his hands and knees and begged for it,” Giuliani said. “Which is exactly the position you want to put him in.”
Late last month, Trump issued a letter to the North Korean leader, stating that “based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your most recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting.”
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“You talk about your nuclear capabilities, but ours are so massive and powerful that I pray to God they will never have to be used,” Trump said.
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The president’s letter came after Kim had threaten to pull out of the summit and warned of a nuclear showdown with the U.S. In a statement released by North Korean media, vice-Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui had called U.S. Vice President Mike Pence a “political dummy” for comparing North Korea — a “nuclear weapons state” — to Libya, where Muammar Gadhafi gave up his unfinished nuclear development program, only to be later killed by NATO-backed fighters.
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“U.S. Vice President Pence has made unbridled and impudent remarks that North Korea might end like Libya, the military option for North Korea never came off the table, the U.S. needs complete, verifiable, and irreversible denuclearization, and so on,” Choe was quoted as saying. “As a person involved in the U.S. affairs, I cannot suppress my surprise at such ignorant and stupid remarks gushing out from the mouth of the U.S. vice-president.”
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Last week, Trump said the meeting with Kim was back on after having a successful meeting with a top North Korean official at the White House, who hand delivered a letter from Kim.
“I think it’s probably going to be a very successful, ultimately a successful process,” Trump said following the meeting. “It’s going to be a process, but the relationships are building and that’s a good thing.”
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