NORTH KOREA/SENATE/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “Republican Senate leaders on Thursday [6-14-18] voiced no objections to President Donald Trump’s apparent defense of North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s strong-arm tactics, instead highlighting their hopes for peace on the Korean Peninsula. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN that Trump’s eyebrow-raising defense of Kim’s authoritarian tactics is fine so long as a peaceful resolution in the region can be reached. In an interview with Fox News on Wednesday, Trump, who said he and Kim “understand each other,” seemed to justify the dictator’s brutal actions against his own people. ‘I mean, I could go through a lot of nations where a lot of bad things were done,’ Trump said. Asked by CNN about the remarks in a Capitol Hill hallway Thursday, McConnell declined to criticize the President..Two retiring Republican senators, however, were less enthusiastic about Trump’s words. ‘I don’t share the President’s feelings towards Kim Jong Un … and I would say most people here don’t,’ said Foreign Relations Chairman Bob Corker of Tennessee. ‘I couldn’t disagree more fully with his assessment of the leader of North Korea.’ Retiring GOP Sen. Jeff Flake, a frequent critic of the President, said Trump’s statement ‘turns our values upside down’ and that the ‘the President speaks fondly of dictators regularly.'”
-Daniella Diaz, Ted Barrett and Manu Raju, “Senate GOP leaders have no objections to Trump’s defense of Kim,” CNN Politics, CNN.com, June 14, 2018 3:00 pm