President Donald Trump downplayed the nuclear risk from North Korea in comments comparing the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs. 

The President was asked by a reporter on Tuesday, “You have said that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Why not… North Korea can have nuclear weapon?”

“He happens to be a friend of mine, Kim Jong Un, he’s a friend of mine. He likes Trump, doesn’t like a lot of other people. I’m about the only person in the entire world that he likes, and I like him,” Trump replied. “As long as I am around, he’s going to be fine. You know why? He respects me and likes me.”

Trump also argued that North Korea would not have developed nuclear weapons if he had been president when its arsenal was being built. “He does have a nuclear capacity, a large, a pretty large nuclear, not like us, but he has a nuclear capacity, Kim Jong Un. And you know why? Because they had presidents that didn’t do what I did.” He continued, “That’s interesting. You know why? Because you had a different president, and they could have stopped him.”

In 2006, North Korea tested its first nuclear weapons while the US military was stretched thin fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and unable to respond. The 1994 Agreed Framework, which froze key parts of North Korea’s nuclear program in exchange for energy assistance and other commitments, collapsed during the George W. Bush administration in 2002 and 2003 because Washington refused to hold up its commitments in response to alleged violations by Pyongyang.

Trump has waged two wars with Iran, which he has justified in significant part by claiming the Islamic Republic cannot be allowed to obtain a nuclear weapon. He often insists that if Tehran pledged not to build a nuclear weapon, the war would come to an end.