North Korea’s Kim Jong Un wishes Trump recovery from coronavirus
Live MintNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Saturday sent a message of sympathy to President Donald Trump and his wife Melania, wishing they would recover from the COVID-19 illness, state media reported. Trump had said he would rain “fire and fury” on North Korea and derided Kim as “little rocket man” on a suicide mission, while Kim responded he would “tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire.” But they stopped such rhetoric and instead developed a personal relationship after Kim abruptly reached out to Trump in 2018 for talks on the fate of his advancing nuclear arsenal. They met three times in 2018-2019, starting with a summit in Singapore that made Trump the first sitting U.S. president to meet a North Korea leader since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. Before their nuclear talks entered a stalemate, Trump said that he and Kim “fell in love.” According to journalist Bob Woodward’s recently published book “Rage,” Kim, in a letter to Trump, called the U.S. president “your excellency” and said he believed the “deep and special friendship between us will work as a magical force.” Some observers said Trump’s coronavirus diagnosis would quell speculation that the two leaders could have planned an “October surprise” in arranging their fourth meeting ahead of the U.S. presidential election in November.