A number of Republican presidential hopefuls criticized former President Donald Trump on Saturday for congratulating North Korean leader Kim Jong Un over his country’s appointment to the World Health Organization’s executive board.
North Korea was seated on the highly influential board this week despite the Kim regime being in near-constant violation of the United Nations’ charter. Dr. Jong Min Pak, who leads the North Korean Ministry of Public Health, will now have a say in determining the WHO’s agenda and policy prescriptions as a voting member of the UN organization. Trump took to his Truth Social platform on Friday to congratulate Kim, despite the news sparking immediate outrage from other member states, especially South Korea.
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“Whether it’s my former running mate or anyone else, no one should be praising the dictator in North Korea — or praising the leader of Russia, who has launched an unprovoked war of aggression in Ukraine,” former Vice President Mike Pence, who is set to launch his 2024 presidential bid on Wednesday, said in an interview with Fox News on Saturday. “This is a time when we ought to make it clear to the world that we stand for freedom and we stand with those who stand for freedom.”
Pence made the comments at Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) annual “Roast and Ride” gathering in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday as he ramps up campaigning for his official 2024 launch. Nearly every major 2024 GOP hopeful attended the event aside from Trump, including Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and former Gov. Nikki Haley (R-SC), both of whom offered similar condemnations of Trump’s comment.
“I was surprised to see that,” DeSantis, who launched his presidential bid late last month, said of Trump’s congratulatory message at the event. “I think Kim Jong Un is a murderous dictator. They just imprisoned for life a family, including an infant, which is just outrageous. The World Health Organization is a bankrupt organization, like Kim Jong Un’s bad but then joining that. We need to be getting out of that and rejecting the WHO lockdown treaty, not congratulating [anyone] about being involved in the WHO.”
Haley struck a similar tone on the Kim comment, saying Saturday, “You don’t congratulate a thug. I mean, let’s keep in mind, this thug has threatened America, has threatened our allies, over and over again.”
“This is not something to play with. I mean, he’s a terrible individual,” she added. “He’s terrible to his people, he’s terrible to our allies in the world, and I don’t think he deserves congratulations.”
Former Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR), a Trump critic who entered the presidential race in April, also criticized the former president’s congratulations in a tweet on Saturday,
“Kim Jong-Un, the tyrant dictator in North Korea should not be praised by Donald Trump for a leadership role in the World Health Organization,” Hutchinson wrote. “We sanction leaders who oppress their people. We do not elevate them on the world stage.”
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Trump has not yet responded to the criticism, though his approach to relations with the North Korean leader were unusual in comparison with most of his recent predecessors. He met with Kim three times during his four years in office, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to set foot on North Korean soil, and the two exchanged what Trump referred to as “love letters.”
The two also publicly feuded, especially when Kim would threaten to use his nuclear weapons on the United States.
