MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace welcomed foreign policy experts on her Friday show to discuss the future of international relations in the era of Donald Trump. Among the comments was that Trump doesn't even know what a "strongman" is.
She showed a clip of Trump talking about some of the authoritarian leaders he admires.
"That's the question they asked Victor Orban, a very strong man. They said, 'He's a strongman,'" Trump said. Sometimes, you need a strong man. He's a strong man. They said, 'He called President Xi [Jinping] brilliant.' He's a brilliant guy. He controls 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. I mean, he's a brilliant guy. Whether you like it or not. And they go crazy."
Joe Rogan responded, noting that calling Xi smart "doesn't mean he's not evil" or "dangerous."
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Wallace called it similar to several other Trump interviews where, while defending Vladimir Putin's role in killing his critics, Trump said the U.S. kills people all the time.
"It seems like he doesn't understand that 'strongman' is a term," said Wallace. "He's saying strong space, man, like muscles. He doesn't understand any of the lexicon of ... sort of the ideological spectrum of styles and types of government. He has no clue about how Mr. Joe Rogan is asking about the brutality of XI and that ruling people with an iron fist isn't good if you're doing it by force. There's no sensibility. This is what the American people in a popular vote victory, this is what they chose, after hearing from every member of Donald Trump's first national security team, that he was dangerous..."
See her discussion below or at the link here.