Trump: 'Thousands' Of Parents Of Korean War Vets Asked For His Help During Campaign
WASHINGTON (CBSLA) -- President Donald Trump spoke to Fox News' Bret Baier on Wednesday and perhaps wishes now that he hadn't.
During the interview in which the president gave himself high marks for a summit in Singapore with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, the president raised eyebrows when he seemed to dismiss the strongman's record on human rights.
The White House Thursday distanced themselves from the president's remarks, suggesting Kim "loves his people" and is "very smart" and that he wasn't trying to sugarcoat Kim's long list of human-rights violations.
Eyebrows were also raised by a claim the president made about the parents of Korean War veterans pleading with him personally about getting back their sons' remains.
"We have thousands of people who have asked for that — thousands and thousands of people," Trump said. "So many people asked when I was on the campaign. I would say, 'Wait a minute, I don't have any relationship.' But they said, 'When you can, president, we'd love our son to be brought back home — you know, the remains."
The math seems pretty hard to square.
Wrote, The Week, "Let's do the math. Say an American solider was 18 when he was sent to North Korea in the war's final year, 1953 — he would have been 80 in 2015; if his parents had given birth to him when they were 18, they would have been 98 in 2015. More realistically, the parents would have been well over 100."
Trump said near the end of his talk with Kim, "I said 'Will you do me a favor? The remains of these great fallen heroes, can we do something?' He agreed to it immediately. It was pretty great."