{"id":12656,"date":"2025-08-27T08:20:43","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T08:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/joe-scarborough-why-cant-trump-quit-the-worlds-worst-dictator\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T08:20:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T08:20:43","slug":"joe-scarborough-why-cant-trump-quit-the-worlds-worst-dictator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/joe-scarborough-why-cant-trump-quit-the-worlds-worst-dictator\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Scarborough: Why can\u2019t Trump \u2018quit\u2019 the \u2018world\u2019s worst dictator\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-testid=\"byline-container\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/author\/allison-detzel-ncpn1310186\" tabindex=\"-1\"><picture data-testid=\"picture\" data-flavor=\"focal\" data-original-height=\"48\" data-original-width=\"48\"><source media=\"(min-width: 320px)\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com\/image\/upload\/t_focal-60x60,f_auto,q_auto:best\/newscms\/2024_45\/3667954\/detzel.jpeg\" alt height=\"48\" width=\"48\"><\/source><\/picture><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<p id=\"anchor-f352de\">On Monday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/donald-trump\" target=\"_blank\">Donald Trump<\/a> took time out of his meeting with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/south-korea-trump-tariffs-trade-deals-rcna217612\" target=\"_blank\">South Korea&rsquo;s <\/a>new president, Lee Jae Myung, to boast about his &ldquo;great relationship&rdquo; with North Korean dictator<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/maddowblog\/trump-touts-kim-jong-un-north-koreas-absolute-leader-rcna154294\" target=\"_blank\"> Kim Jong Un.<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-8017e7\">&ldquo;I understand him,&rdquo; Trump told reporters at the White House. &ldquo;I spent a lot of free time with him, talking about things that we probably aren&rsquo;t supposed to talk about. And, you know, I just, I get along with him really well.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-a0d10a\">The president also called North Korea &ldquo;a country of great potential&rdquo; and said he hoped to meet with Kim later this year.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-3ca078\">On Tuesday&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/morning-joe\" target=\"_blank\">&ldquo;Morning Joe,&rdquo; <\/a>co-host Joe Scarborough reacted to Trump&rsquo;s comments, saying: &ldquo;It&rsquo;s a country of great potential because North Korea is perhaps one of the most backwards countries on the planet because of that leader right there [Kim] and his father.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-68da91\">Scarborough said conservatives &mdash; &ldquo;<em>real<\/em> conservatives, the type of people that used to be in the Republican Party when I was back there&rdquo; &mdash; previously didn&rsquo;t share Trump&rsquo;s admiration for the communist country and its leader.<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-6da2cb\">Scarborough continued: &ldquo;He&rsquo;s the most <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/rachel-maddow-show\/trump-praises-north-koreas-very-honorable-dictator-msna1093951\" target=\"_blank\">brutal dictator<\/a> &mdash; one of the most brutal dictators &mdash; on the planet, which leads to the question &#8230; what is it about Kim Jong Un that Donald Trump just can&rsquo;t quit? What is it about Kim Jong Un that has the president of the United States bringing up the dictator, the world&rsquo;s worst dictator, when he&rsquo;s meeting with our long-term ally?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-afd688\">&ldquo;Morning Joe&rdquo; co-host Jonathan Lemire agreed with Scarborough&rsquo;s criticism and noted Trump&rsquo;s &ldquo;fascination with Kim Jong Un has lasted more than a decade,&rdquo; adding the pair have sat down for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YeBVk4uRRgg\" target=\"_blank\">three summits<\/a> over the years with &ldquo;no real progress made.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-c3caca\">Lemire also theorized there could be a fresh motivation behind Trump&rsquo;s latest effort to sit down with the communist leader: &ldquo;As we know, President Trump is casting about to try to find a way to get a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/trump-nobel-peace-prize-russia-ukraine-rcna225251\" target=\"_blank\">Nobel Peace Prize.<\/a> It seems like perhaps this is the new venue.&rdquo; <\/p>\n<p id=\"anchor-de3ab5\"><em>You can watch Scarborough&rsquo;s and Lemire&rsquo;s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/top-stories\/latest\/trump-north-korea-dictator-kim-jong-un-meeting-rcna227286\" class=\"button purchase\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Monday, Donald Trump took time out of his meeting with South Korea&rsquo;s new president, Lee Jae Myung, to boast about his &ldquo;great relationship&rdquo; with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. &ldquo;I understand him,&rdquo; Trump told reporters at the White House. &ldquo;I spent a lot of free time with him, talking about things that we [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12657,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trump"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12656\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12657"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}