President Trump told Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte in a telephone call last month he believed North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un was a “madman with nuclear weapons,” according to a transcript of the call.
A Washington Post report published Tuesday evening found Trump had asked Duterte whether he believed the North Korean leader was “stable or not stable.”
The private rebuke of Kim took place three days before Trump publicly said he would be “honored” to meet him.
Duterte, who had led a deadly crackdown of drug addicts and dealers, had told Trump the North Korean was “playing with his bombs, his toys,” adding “his mind is not working well and he just might go crazy one moment.”
Trump later told Duterte, “We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has, times 20 — but we don’t want to use it,” referring to U.S. warships moved to the Korean Peninsula.
