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US President Donald Trump has said he and North Korea leader Kim Jong Un “fell in love” when they met each other.

When addressing a cheering crowd at a rally in West Virginia, Mr Trump said Mr Kim “wrote me beautiful letters and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Mr Trump was telling the crowd that once the pair got over the “tough talk” and the “back and forth”, they really got on.

He said: “We have a very good relationship. We [the US] were going to war with North Korea. That was what was going to happen.”

“We are doing great,” he added.

“That was a big, big problem. And you know what’s interesting, when we did it, and when I was being really, really tough, so was he, we would go back and forth.

“And then we fell in love, ok? No really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.”

Mr Trump then joked about potential criticism he would receive from the media for making a comment that some would consider “unpresidential”.

He noted that Kim is interested in a second meeting after their initial meeting in Singapore in June was hailed by Trump as a big step toward denuclearisation of North Korea.