Former President Donald Trump heaped praise on authoritarian Chinese President Xi Jinping during a lengthy interview Friday with the podcaster Joe Rogan.

“We’re dealing with the smartest people,” Trump said, referring to the leaders of U.S. 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.”

  • seaQueue@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    edit-2
    20 days ago

    I think most of these folks you find on Lemmy are just useful idiots whose stupidity/ignorance/naiveté has been weaponized on other platforms.

    I’m sure we’re on someone’s sentiment management radar by now but I’m not sure if we’re populated enough for a truly serious effort to be mounted. That’s coming at some point though, of that I have no doubt.

    • Nougat@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      19 days ago

      I could see a cunning propagandist trying to get a strong foothold early in order to “claim territory.” Remember voat?