'Unbelievable job on the drug problem': Trump's PRAISE for Philippine leader Rodrigo Duterte is revealed in leaked transcript of CONFIDENTIAL call as thousands of dealers and addicts are slaughtered
By Ariel Zilber
Daily Mail
May 24, 2017
President Donald Trump late last month praised his Filipino counterpart, Rodrigo Duterte, for doing 'an unbelievable job' in his war on drugs even as human rights groups accuse him of sanctioning murder and extrajudicial killings in the southeast Asian country, it was learned on Tuesday.
'You are a good man,' the president told Duterte during a phone call on April 29.
'Keep up the good work.'
An official transcript of the call, which was first produced by the Philippine's Department of Foreign Affairs, was obtained by the news site The Intercept.
Trump was heavily criticized after the White House described the call as a 'friendly' one at the end of which the president invited Duterte to visit the White House.
Duterte has faced international condemnation for his brutal crackdown on crime, which has claimed thousands of lives and led to warnings from rights groups about a possible crime against humanity.
In the past, Duterte boasted of throwing people from a helicopter.
Now the newly leaked transcripts reveal the extent to which Trump gushed over Duterte.
The conversation started when Trump complimented Duterte's work ethic.
'You don't sleep much, you're just like me,' Trump told Duterte.
Then the conversation shifted to Duterte's highly controversial crackdown on suspected drug users.
'I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,' Trump told Duterte.
'Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.'
'Thank you Mr. President,' Duterte replied to Trump.
'This is the scourge of my nation now and I have to do something to preserve the Filipino nation.'
During the conversation, Trump went out of his way to differentiate himself from his predecessor, Barack Obama, who was critical of the Duterte government's policies.
In September, Obama cancelled a planned first meeting with Duterte on the sidelines of an Asian summit in Laos after the Filipino leader blurted 'son of a whore' [Philippine term for ‘son of a bitch’] in warning the US leader not to lecture him on human rights ahead of their meeting.
Duterte later expressed regrets over his remarks.
A month later, Duterte told Obama to 'go to hell' after the then-president again criticized the Manila government's human rights record.
In their phone call, Trump told his Filipino counterpart that unlike Obama, he knows where Duterte is coming from.
'I understand that, and fully understand that, and I think we had a previous president who did not understand that,' Trump said, 'but I understand that and we have spoken about this before.'
During the phone call, Trump appeared to entertain the possibility of a US nuclear strike on North Korea.
'We can't let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that,' Trump told Duterte.
'We have a lot of firepower, more than he has times 20, but we don't want to use it.'
'We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarines - the best in the world - we have two nuclear submarines - not that we want to use them at all,' Trump said.
'I've never seen anything like they are, but we don't have to use this, but he could be crazy so we will see what happens.'
Trump told Duterte that the US would try to diffuse the North Korea crisis through China.
Duterte replied that he would be happy to call China's president, Xi Jinping, to facilitate the process.
The chumminess between Trump and Duterte has reinforced concerns among political observers over the US president's public embrace of authoritarian leaders.
In the months since Trump has both campaigned and served as president, he has spoken warmly of Russia's Vladimir Putin, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The contrast between Duterte and Obama could not be any clearer.
Duterte is waging a take-no-prisoners war on drugs that has rid the Philippines of thousands of drug dealers and users. Have innocent Filipinos been killed? Yes, but they are the unfortunate collateral damage that can be expected in any war.
Obama on the other hand pardoned and commuted the sentences of several hundred drug traffickers. His administration ordered federal prosecutors to charge drug traffickers in such a way as to get around the mandatory sentencing law.
I’ve been to the Philippines twice within the past couple of years and have seen that Duterte is very popular with the Filipino people.
Like Trump, I too have praised Duterte’s all out war on drugs.
2 comments:
If you want to stop bad behavior, let those that participate suffer the known consequences.
There is a significant portion of people in this country, including many in the government, who will do WHATEVER IT TAKES to destroy Trump.
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