President Trump said on Friday that he wants “his people” to listen to him like North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s people listen to him.
“He’s the head of a country. And I mean, he is the strong head,” Trump said of Kim in a tongue-in-cheek manner as he spoke to Steve Doocy of “Fox & Friends” outside the White House.
“Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same,” Trump said.
It wasn’t clear what Trump meant by “his people” and “my people,” phrasings that could be interpreted to mean all North Koreans and Americans but that could also mean those people reporting directly to the two leaders.
Doocy did not ask a direct follow-up question to clarify.
Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn after the Fox interview, Trump was pressed on what he meant when he said that he wanted his “people” to listen to him like the North Koreans listen to Kim.
“I was kidding,” he said. “You don’t understand sarcasm.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for clarification.
The president praised Kim during the Fox interview, a continuation of compliments he has offered the dictator since their summit in Singapore earlier this week.
He said that he had “hit it off” with Kim.
“We get along very well, we had good chemistry,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments came three days after his meeting with Kim — the first between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean leader — in which the two signed a brief document committing the Korean Peninsula to denuclearization in exchange for unspecified security guarantees from the U.S.
Trump has also come under fire from some lawmakers for his friendly comments towards Kim, whose government has a notorious human rights record and a history of cruel treatment of prisoners, including Americans.