Former President Donald Trump heaped praise on authoritarian Chinese President Xi Jinping during a lengthy interview on Friday with the podcaster Joe Rogan.
“We’re dealing with the smartest people,” Trump said, referring to the leaders of US adversaries, about an hour and a half into their conversation.
“They hate when I say, you know, when the press — when I called President Xi, [the press] said, ‘Well, he called President Xi brilliant.’ Well, 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.”
“Right, it doesn’t mean he’s not evil, or it doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous,” Rogan responded.
Trump then took the opportunity to refer to Americans as “evil people.”
“Yeah, of course not,” Trump said. “But, actually, we have evil people in our country.”
Earlier this month, Trump said that Democrats allied against him are “the enemy from within.” Trump repeated that line again in his interview with Rogan.
“We had no problem with him,” Trump said about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. “I say to people: We have a bigger problem, in my opinion, with the enemy from within.”
Trump added that it “drives [the press] crazy when I use that term.”
“But we have an enemy from within. We have people that are really bad people, that I really think want to make this country unsuccessful,” Trump repeated.
In 2018, Trump praised Xi when the country’s Communist party announced the elimination of presidential term limits, allowing Xi to serve indefinitely.
“He’s now president for life, president for life,” Trump said at the time. “And he’s great. And look, he was able to do that. I think it’s great. Maybe we’ll have to give that a shot someday.”
Last year, Trump flirted with the idea of being a dictator should he get back in power. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump said he’d act like a “dictator,” but only on the first day of his new administration.
Trump has also reportedly praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and boasted about his relationship with Kim.
“He’d like to see me back, too,” Trump said of the North Korean dictator at the Republican National Convention earlier this year. “I think he misses me, if you want to know the truth.”