Philip Rucker at the Post on Trump’s galloping case of dictator envy:

President Trump’s praise Friday for Kim Jong Un’s authoritarian rule in North Korea — and his apparent envy that people there “sit up at attention” when the 35-year-old dictator speaks — marked an escalation of the American president’s open embrace of totalitarian leaders around the world.

Reflecting on his impressions of Kim following their Singapore summit, Trump told Fox News: “He’s the head of a country, and I mean he’s the strong head. Don’t let anyone think anything different. He speaks, and his people sit up at attention. I want my people to do the same.”

It was unclear whether Trump was referring to Americans generally or only to his staff. His interview took place along the West Wing driveway, and as the president talked about “my people,” he gestured toward the White House.

Later, when pressed by a CNN reporter about the comment, Trump claimed it had been a joke. “I’m kidding,” he said. “You don’t understand sarcasm.”

He probably was sort of “kidding” but that doesn’t mean he didn’t also mean it. It’s entirely possible to say things in a “kidding” way while also entirely meaning them. Trump does that all the time. It makes his endless barrage of insults and taunts sort of kind of deniable, but not really. His “base” will always claim they are “jokes” and the rest of us will know that kind of joke is not really a joke – if a joke is taken to be something we don’t really mean. Jokes can be both accurate and intended to draw a laugh, after all. Jokes about ugly people, foreigners, women, servants, Jews – they’re not less destructive or sadistic or hatred-inciting simply because they’re “jokes.”

During his visit to Singapore, Trump showered praise on Kim, calling him a “very talented man,” a “smart guy” and a “very good negotiator.” He also complimented Kim’s “great personality.”

Trump was more muted when it came to Kim’s record of human rights atrocities. The North Korean leader starves many of his citizens, sentences opponents to labor camps and executes people he perceives as threats to his power, including assassinating family members.

Asked at a news conference in Singapore how he could be comfortable calling a dictator with a murderous record “very talented,” Trump replied, “Well, he is very talented. Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough — I don’t say it was nice, or I don’t say anything about it. He ran it. Very few people at that age, you can take 1 out of 10,000, probably couldn’t do it.”

Trump’s posture is inconsistent with Republican orthodoxy. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) tweeted that while Trump was “trying to butter him up to get a good deal,” Kim “is NOT a talented guy. He inherited the family business from his dad & grandfather. He is a total weirdo who would not be elected assistant dogcatcher in any democracy.”

Oops. Awkward. Trump also inherited the family business from his father and grandfather.

Trump kept up his praise of Kim in an interview Friday with “Fox & Friends” co-host Steve Doocy. He noted that he gave Kim “a very direct number” and instructed him to “call me if he has any difficulties.”

“We have a really great relationship for the first time ever,” Trump said. “No president’s ever had this. So I get hit by these fakes back here” — he pointed dismissively to a group of journalists who were gathered behind him at the White House on the North Lawn driveway — “not all of them, some are phenomenal, but I get hit because I went there, I gave him credibility. I think it’s great to give him credibility.”

Yes, that’s our point. You think it’s great to give him credibility and we think it’s really really not.

Trump’s critics pointed to his salute of one of Kim’s generals — footage of which was released Thursday by North Korean state media in a documentary film about the summit — as evidence of the national security risks in his behavior.

The video captured a brief interaction that was not seen by U.S. journalists. A North Korean general saluted Trump, and the president saluted him in return. It is highly unusual for a U.S. president to return the salute of a foreign military officer. Some analysts said Kim’s government was likely to use the image in its propaganda campaigns as a victory for Pyongyang because it suggests the American commander in chief defers to the North Korean military.

Trump defended his salute in his Friday interview with Fox.

“I met a general,” he said. “He saluted me, and I saluted him back. I guess they’re using that as another sound bite. You know, I think I’m being respectful to the general.”

He thinks that because he knows nothing about it. He knows nothing about it because he didn’t trouble himself to learn anything about it. He refused to do any homework. He told us he didn’t need to, that preparing is a mistake; he told us he’d been preparing his whole life. I wish I were joking.