Nikki Haley: Trump’s UN speech was ‘blunt and honest’

by Julia Manchester - 09/21/17 7:28 PM ET

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Thursday that world leaders were receptive to President Trump’s fiery speech to the international body on Wednesday, saying they appreciated how “blunt and honest” the address was.

“I think what you saw were a lot of countries responded, they were very positive to the speech, and they appreciated how blunt and honest he was. I think that’s been the overall theme from the international community this week, is how straightforward he was and how refreshing it was as they heard him speak,” Haley told reporters at a press briefing.

Trump delivered a bombastic maiden speech to the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, in which he referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” and said the country would be destroyed if it continued to threaten the U.S. and its allies.

{mosads}The president said Kim’s “reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons … threatens the entire world with unthinkable loss of human life.”

Kim fired back at Trump on Thursday, calling the president a “gangster” and saying his rhetoric at the U.N. only encouraged him to move forward with the country’s nuclear weapons program.

“The mentally deranged behavior of the U.S. president openly expressing on the U.N. arena the unethical will to ‘totally destroy’ a sovereign state, beyond the boundary of threats of regime change or overturn of social system, makes even those with normal thinking think about discretion and composure,” the North Korean leader said.

“His remarks which described the U.S. option through straightforward expression of his will have convinced me, rather than frightening or stopping me, that the path I chose is correct and that is one that I have to follow to the last.”

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