The Disturbing Logic of Trump’s Lovefest With Kim Jong Un

The grisly news that the North Korean leader Kim Jong Un allegedly executed his envoy for nuclear talks with the United States didn’t come as a total surprise. Rumors have swirled for weeks that Kim purged his negotiating team over the collapse of his second summit with President Donald Trump in February.

North Korean state media published ominous language about “stern judgment” for “traitors” on Thursday, which a South Korean newspaper cited along with the account of an anonymous source to claim that some North Korean officials had been gunned down and others imprisoned. Though the report is unconfirmed, with the U.S. and South Korean governments both stating that they’re looking into the matter, it has nonetheless elicited an outcry among Trump’s critics.

Here was the ruthless totalitarian whom the American president has professed to and (“We fell in love”) and whose latest Trump has , despite the concerns of Kim for calling former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden “a low IQ individual.”