President Trump took heat from Democrats on Tuesday for calling North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un “talented” and for meeting him at a venue that displayed the flags of both the U.S. and North Korea.
But neither are firsts, and Democrats have done similar things as they tried to negotiate with rogue regimes. For example, a top negotiator on North Korea under former President Bill Clinton once called Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il, “witty and humorous.”
Wendy Sherman was a special adviser to Clinton on North Korea, and she traveled with then-Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to North Korea in 2000 to meet Kim Jong Il. In an obituary on Kim Jong Il that ran on NPR in 2011, Sherman was quoted as saying the dictator was funny and smart.
“We shared similar impressions of meeting him. He was smart and a quick problem-solver,” Sherman said. “He is also witty and humorous. Our overall impression was very different from the way he was known to the outside world.”
Sherman also praised the pageant that Kim put on for her and Albright.
“He clearly took such delight in putting these performances together,” she said.
The Washington Post, one of Albright’s critics after the meeting, wrote in an op-ed that she should never have been photographed “as 100,000 essentially enslaved laborers performed for her and one of the world’s most repressive dictators.”
Despite that meeting, Democrats trained their fire on Trump on Tuesday. Gene Sperling, former President Barack Obama’s economic counselor, tweeted that “talented” is how Trump “describes a rule of brutality, torture, dictatorship, suppression & economic ruin. More proof Trump has no moral compass.”
Trump just said the way Kim has run North Korea “tough” is proof of how exceptionally “talented” he has proven to be. This is how our President describes a rule of brutality, torture, dictatorship, suppression & economic ruin. More proof Trump has zero moral compass.
— Gene Sperling (@genebsperling) June 12, 2018
Sherman, who also worked under Obama later in her career, also criticized Trump on Tuesday for being seen on a stage that had a row of alternating U.S. and North Korean flags.
“I must say I was a little taken aback by the North Korean flags and the American flags side by side,” Sherman said.
Several other liberals made the same point, and some said Trump sullied the U.S. flag.
Kaepernick kneels during the National Anthem to protest police brutality: “Unpatriotic! Disrespectful! An insult to the military!”
Trump uses the flag to provide North Korea’s brutal dictator with propaganda while U.S. troops are on the DMZ: “Give this patriot the Nobel Prize!” pic.twitter.com/XGDtnssYQU
— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) June 12, 2018
So you’re take is that it’s good our country stood on equal footing with a mass murderer and had our flags side by side to push forward on a nothing burger deal? That this isn’t a boon to North Korea worthy of criticism?
— Neera Tanden ? (@neeratanden) June 12, 2018
However, Sherman’s former boss, Secretary of State John Kerry, was photographed with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in 2015 with U.S. and Iranian flags in the background, as the U.S. negotiated the Iran nuclear deal with the state sponsor of terrorism.
And after Sherman left the government, Obama met with Cuban President Raul Castro in front of the flags of both countries.
