Trump tells The Wall Street Journal that he 'probably' has a 'very good relationship with Kim Jong Un'

(Image credit: SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images)

published 11 January 2018

President Trump made two surprising confessions Thursday in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

First, Trump stated with baffling uncertainty that he has great rapport with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. "I probably have a very good relationship with [Kim]," Trump said, following weeks of escalating tensions between the White House and Pyongyang. Trump additionally seemed to revel in the ambiguity of his statement, declining to clarify to the Journal whether he had in fact communicated with Kim. "I don't want to comment on it," Trump said. "I'm not saying I have or haven't. I just don't want to comment."

Elsewhere in the conversation, the president lamented the "betrayal" of former White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon, after Bannon was quoted offering some unkind evaluations of the administration in Michael Wolff's new book, Fire and Fury. While musing about whether his relationship with Bannon is forever damaged, Trump reportedly said, "I don't know what the word permanent means."

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Read the entire interview at The Wall Street Journal.

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Kelly O'Meara Morales is a staff writer at The Week. He graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and studied Middle Eastern history and nonfiction writing amongst other esoteric subjects. When not compulsively checking Twitter, he writes and records music, subsists on tacos, and watches basketball.