Heritage’s Bruce Klingner: North Korea Rumors Troubling, But Caution Necessary

RUSH EXCERPT:

TURNER: "Well, a new report out this morning not yet confirmed by Fox News but our correspondents are working on it. China sent medical team over to North Korea to take a look at Kim Jong Un, this comes as the north Korean leader’s health remains unclear. For more we are joined by Bruce, senior fellow for northeast Asia after The Heritage Foundation. Bruce, thanks for joining us, we are seeing everything bubbling up in terms of foreign reporting from Kim Jong Un is totally fine, recovered well from his surgery mid-April 2, he’s actually in vegetative state verging on death. Based on what is known publicly and based on what you know about the regime, what’s your best guess as to where he actually is?"
KLINGNER: "Quite simply we don’t know. We’ve had rumors that he’s dead, brain dead and the U.S. Intelligence saying he was seen walking around port city several days ago and he may have evacuated himself simply to avoid being infected by Covid. The Chinese medical team maybe there to deal with Covid or Kim has Covid or others around him. So we’ve had initial reports which were downplayed by U.S., South Korean and Chinese officials, but then we’ve seen as recent spate of rumors and we really don’t know what’s going on there.”