President Trump’s Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley mounted a vigorous defense of his speech yesterday, including his use of the nickname ‘Rocket Man’ to refer to North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
‘Well, I’ll tell you George, it worked,’ Haley told Good Morning America’s George Stephanopoulos. ‘I was talking to a president of an African country yesterday and he actually cited Rocket Man back to me, so I will tell you, this is a way of getting people to talk about him.’
On Tuesday, in front of the United Nations General Assembly, gathering in Trump’s hometown of New York, the president said that the ‘Rocket Man’ is on a ‘suicide mission’ and that the United States would take him out if he continued being a threat.
Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley defended President Trump’s speech in front of the UN’s General Assembly yesterday, saying his new nickname for Kim Jong Un ‘worked’
ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos (left) asked UN Ambassador Nikki Haley (right) about the appropriateness of talking about destroying other countries while speaking before the UN
‘The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea,’ Trump proclaimed.
Stephanopoulos pointed out to Haley some criticism of the speech, including that world leaders don’t usually talk of destroying countries while at the United Nations, and asked her to respond.
‘Well, I think what you saw yesterday from the president was he was being honest,’ she replied.
‘I know that people and countries don’t want to hear it, but here’s a man who continues to test ballistic missiles, he continues to test now hydrogen bombs, he continues to threaten our allies, he says he’s going to destroy the United States to ashes, he says he’s going to continue to send us gift packages to the United States,’ she noted.
‘So if you want to talk about who’s been giving us threats it’s certainly been the Kim regime,’ she added.
Haley suggested the US had ‘exhausted every diplomatic means,’ though would still try diplomacy because ‘while he has been irresponsible, we’re going to be responsible.’
‘But we’ve tried to do dialogue, we’ve now tried to do sanctions and the international community very much appreciated the blunt, honest approach that the president took on North Korea as well as Iran,’ she said.
Onstage at the UN, Trump took on American leaders in the Obama administration for crafting the nuclear deal with Iran.
‘The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into,’ he said.
‘Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it,’ he added. ‘Believe me.’
It was Iran’s Foreign Minister Javad Zarif who had some of the harshest criticism for Trump’s speech.
‘Trump’s ignorant hate speech belongs in medieval times-not the 21st Century UN -unworthy of a reply,’ he wrote Tuesday.
‘Fake empathy for Iranians fools no one,’ Zarif added.