This week, Trump revisited that playbook with slightly subtler but characteristically ridiculous rhetoric. Trump, now a campaign veteran, traded in his infamous “Russia, if you’re listening” overture to the Kremlin in 2016 for sickly gushy praise of—not one, not two—but three despots who just might have the intelligence capacity to give Trump an edge in the 2024 contest: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
“Top of the line. Top line. They’re all top of the line,” Trump said of the autocrats before launching into an extended tongue bath about each of them.
Xi is simply inimitable:
President Xi is a brilliant man. If you went all over Hollywood to look for somebody to play the role of President Xi, you couldn’t find, there’s nobody like that. The look, the brain, the whole thing. We had a great relationship.
Trump also waxed nostalgic about his Mar-a-Lago cake diplomacy back in the day.
Well, I’ll tell you what is an interesting thing. We’re having dinner at Mar-a-Lago, and it was he wanted to be at Mar-a-Lago. We had a great weekend, but we’re having dessert now. Beautiful chocolate cake at Mar-a-Lago. He had his people. I had mine. He was telling me stories about China. … A general came up and said, “Do we do it now?” I said, “Yeah, you have to do it now.” So I gave the order during dinner. Then I said, “Well, do I tell him? Because they’re very closely associated with Syria. Do I tell him now or do I wait until he finds out after dinner?” Because you have about 28 minutes before they hit.
So I said, “President Xi, we’ve just fired approximately 57 missiles into Syria, into a base. The missiles are on their way right now.”
He looked at me, he goes, “Repeat?” That’s the only time he’s ever said it. So I think he speaks English.
Kim Jong Un is an unparalleled silver-spoon talent.
People ask how smart is Kim Jong Un? Kim Jong Un is smart too. You know, when you come out and as a young man at 24, 23, even though he sort of inherits it, most people when they inherit, they lose it. And that’s easy stuff. He took over a country, a very smart people, very, very energetic people, very tough people at a very young age. And he has total dominate control. That’s not easy. These are these are very smart.
Most trust funders, when they inherit, they lose it. Mm-hmm.
As for Putin, brilliant, as always. Also Trump read something in a newspaper.
Putin, very smart.
Now, he’s had in and probably a bad year. If he took over all of Ukraine and what are we going to do because Biden is so committed to Ukraine. What happens if it’s a not winnable war?
You know, there are people that say Ukraine cannot win.
You can’t beat Russia. Russia right now, I’m not saying anything out of school. I read it in one of our newspapers. So, you know, it’s probably fake news, but maybe not. I don’t think it is.
So if any of them were listening, Trump appears to be for sale. Not that it was ever in question, but just in case—may as well make it crystal clear.
The never-Trump group Republican Accountability Project did a mashup of Trump’s despot love-fest because, why not?
