WASHINGTON: The White House on Thursday ruled out any role for retired basketball star Dennis Rodman — who has formed an unlikely friendship with Kim Jong Un — in next week’s summit between the North Korean leader and US President Donald Trump.
Rodman, the former Chicago Bulls forward, has made five trips to Pyongyang since Kim took power and once called the North Korean leader his “friend for life.”
The New York Post said the five-time NBA champion would be in Singapore during the historic meeting of the two heads of state next Tuesday, but a White House spokesman said Rodman would not be part of the meeting.
“I don’t know what part the best rebounder in basketball has to play in that,” spokesman Hogan Gidley told Fox News. “He is great on the court but negotiations should be left to those who are good at it... Trump is the best.”
Gidley said he expected Trump and Kim to have “an amazing conversation without Dennis Rodman in tow.”
Trump confirmed that Rodman would not be attending the summit, as he met with visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“I like him. He’s a nice guy. No, he was not invited,” Trump told reporters.
After the summit was first announced in March, Rodman said on Twitter he had “great respect” for both men, noting that he had predicted as early as 2014 a breakthrough in tense US-North Korean ties.
Rodman first visited North Korea in 2013 with members of the Harlem Globetrotters basketball team, and in 2014 put together a team of North Korean basketball players for an exhibition match marking Kim’s birthday.
Rodman was even filmed singing “Happy Birthday” to the North Korean strongman.
His last trip was in June 2017 when he gave Kim a copy of Trump’s best-selling book, “The Art of the Deal.”
Rodman, nicknamed “the Worm” when he played in the NBA, also appeared twice on Trump’s pre-presidential reality TV show “Celebrity Apprentice.”
White House rules out role for Dennis Rodman in Kim-Trump summit
White House rules out role for Dennis Rodman in Kim-Trump summit
- Rodman, the former Chicago Bulls forward, has made five trips to Pyongyang since Kim took power and once called the North Korean leader his “friend for life.”
- After the summit was first announced in March, Rodman said on Twitter he had “great respect” for both men, noting that he had predicted as early as 2014 a breakthrough in tense US-North Korean ties.
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
