President Trump joked with then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders that she would have to “go to North Korea and take one for the team” after the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, winked at her in June 2018 during a summit in Singapore, according to a report Wednesday.
“Kim Jong Un hit on you,” Trump told Sanders as they were riding in the presidential limousine on the way to the airport. “He did. He f—ing hit on you.”
The exchange is included in Sanders’ memoir, “Speaking for Myself,” the Guardian reported, citing a copy of the book.
In it, Sanders recounted how Kim and Trump met and talked about sports and the North Korean dictator accepted a Tic Tac from the president.
Suddenly, Sanders said, she noticed “Kim staring at me. We made direct eye contact and Kim nodded and appeared to wink at me. I was stunned. I quickly looked down and continued taking notes.”
“… All I could think was, ‘What just happened? Surely Kim Jong Un did not just mark me!?’”
Later riding in “the Beast,” Sanders told Trump and then-White House chief of staff John Kelly about the off-putting encounter.
That’s when Trump joked: “Well, Sarah, that settles it. You’re going to North Korea and taking one for the team! Your husband and kids will miss you, but you’ll be a hero to your country!”
She writes that Kelly and Trump “howled with laughter.”