‘We fell in love’: Trump touts bromance with North Korea’s Kim

President Donald Trump has fallen in love — with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

That’s according to the president, who praised Mr. Kim for what Mr. Trump said were steps toward denuclearization during a televised wideranging speech at a rally Saturday in Wheeling, W.Va.

“I was really being tough and so was he. And we would go back and forth. And then we fell in love. No, really. He wrote me beautiful letters. They were great letters. And then we fell in love,” Mr. Trump said of his talks with Mr. Kim over his nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Trump was speaking about a series of letters he has exchanged with Mr. Kim since their landmark summit in Singapore in June. At that meeting, Mr. Kim agreed to a vaguely worded 1½-page joint statement to “work towards the complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula,” while Mr. Trump committed to “provide security guarantees” and take moves toward the normalization of relations.

Although denuclearization talks between the two countries have stalled, the two leaders’ relationship has shifted from venomous personal attacks last year to expressions of endearment this year.

During his speech at the United Nations last week, Mr. Trump raised hopes that a second meeting with Mr. Kim could occur “quite soon,” striking a conciliatory tone just a year after he used his debut at the U.N. to deride the dictator as “Little Rocket Man” and threaten to “totally destroy” his country. Mr. Trump praised Mr. Kim in his most recent U.N. speech, calling him “very open” and “terrific,” despite the glacial pace of progress in convincing the North to relinquish its nuclear arsenal.

On Saturday, Mr. Trump defended his praise for Mr. Kim, who oversees a system of brutal gulags thought to hold tens of thousands of political prisoners and is suspected of ordering the assassination of his halfbrother, Kim Jong Nam, last year as well as the execution of his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, in 2013.

It was also a noticeable shift from Mr. Trump’s strong words for the North Korean regime after U.S. student Otto Warmbier was released from their custody in a coma. Mr. Warmbier died days after his return to the United States.

“I like him, he likes me. I guess that’s OK,” Mr. Trump said. “Am I allowed to say that?”

He then went on to blast the media for critical reporting of his Singapore summit and moves in its wake, saying that the media reaction to his remarks about Mr. Kim would likely be reported as “unpresidential.”

Mr. Trump has maintained that the June meeting was necessary to pull the two countries away from the precipice of war.

“I didn’t give up anything. I gave up nothing,” he said. “The only thing I gave up was I agreed to meet.”