President Donald Trump earned praise from basketball diplomat Dennis Rodman after announcing his intentions to meet with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
“Well done, President Trump. You’re on the way to a historical meeting no U.S. president has ever done,” Rodman told the Associated Press.
Rodman has traveled to North Korea on several occasions, earning criticism for his willingness to spend time in the dictator state.
In 2017, Rodman publicly presented the North Korean sports minister a copy of Trump’s book, The Art of the Deal:
Rodman appeared on Trump’s Celebrity Apprentice television show in 2013, but Trump had mixed opinions about the basketball star’s decision to engage North Korea.
“The only American who has met with the North Korean man child is Dennis Rodman,” Trump wrote on Twitter in 2013. “Isn’t that frightening and sad?”:
In 2014, Trump denied that he wanted to go to North Korea with Dennis Rodman, calling it the “last place on Earth I want to go”:
Rodman endorsed Trump for president in 2015: