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WEBVTT RUN.RIGHT HOW SHE'S FOCUSED ONHELPING DEMOCRATS WIN STATELEVEL SIGHTS.>> WHILE MANY OF US AS DEMOCRATSREGARD THE ELECTION OF DONALDTRUMP AS A GRAVE MISTAKE, GREATRE PUBLICS ARE ABLE TO CORRECTTHOSE MISTAKES WITH THE NEXTELECTION.I THINK YOU'LL SEE MORE NEWCANDIDATES, FIRST-TIMECANDIDATES RUNNING IN THE NEXTELECTIONS THAN WE'VE SEEN IN ALONG TIME.TOM: YOU'LL FIND A FULL SCHEDULEOF O'MALLEY'S EVENTS ON WMUR.COMAS WELL AS HIS TAKE ON PRESIDENT

Advertisement O’Malley says President Trump, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un are both ‘erratic, malignantly narcissistic’ In interview ahead of return visit to NH, former Maryland governor hints of possible run for president in 2020 Share Shares Copy Link Copy

Ahead of his return to New Hampshire in the first campaign-style visit of the 2020 presidential cycle, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said Monday that President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un share personality traits that are deeply concerning.“You have here the intersection of two really erratic and malignantly narcissistic leaders squaring off with nuclear arsenals,” O’Malley told WMUR in a telephone interview.“Let us hope that more rational voices prevail. We work best as a nation in securing a peaceful world when we act with our neighbors, especially those neighbors that are most directly affected.”Tensions mounted during the weekend as North Korea attempted a missile launch, which failed, and as Kim watched a massive parade of missiles in Pyongyang. At the same time Vice President Mike Pence, in South Korea, visited the Korean Demilitarized Zone and warned that the U.S. “era of strategic patience” with North Korea is over.O’Malley cited Trump’s shifting positions on China and criticized the president for openly discussing potential responses to an earlier ballistic missile test by North Korea with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in February during a dinner on a public terrace at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. “One month, Donald Trump was vilifying China,” O’Malley said. “The next month, he was saying he really likes their leader. The Japanese president was treated to a esreally sort of the ‘Keystone Cops’ running national security when he was down there in Mar-a-Lago and saw Donald Trump and his administration poring over confidential documents with their cellphone cameras between desert and dinner.”O’Malley dropped out of the Democratic nomination battle early in 2016, eight days before the New Hampshire primary, following a poor showing in the Iowa caucus. He’ll be back in the Granite State on Sunday with planned stops at house parties at Salem and Bedford, and a town hall meeting in Bow.He said that to make Trump a one-term president, the Democratic Party must "speak to the primary issue all around our country, and that is everyone’s own family’s ability to work hard and get ahead. It is a message of economic opportunity and growing the middle class, and we need a candidate who can articulate that with the credibility that comes from executive experience.”“It’s fine to say, ‘Strengthen and grow our middle class.’ We all agree that’s what we should be doing. In my state we actually did it,” he said. “Number one public schools for the first time. We held that distinction for five years in a row in the middle of a recession. Number one median income. Best state for women-run businesses. A state with upward economic opportunity for all.”O’Malley was the governor of Maryland from January 2007-January 2015 and previously served as the mayor of Baltimore from 1999-2007.Will he make a second run for president? “Regarding 2020, I’ve been asked if I would be running again for president. I might. It’s too early to make a decision like that.”O’Malley said the Democratic National Committee clearly showed favoritism toward Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. And he said the party's decision to hold few debates before the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire Primary was designed to help the frontrunner and eventual nominee. “Do you want me to rank frustration one a 1 to 10 scale?” he asked. “The lack of debates and the format of those debates was a 10 on the 1 to 10 frustration level for me and my campaign.“And I hope that the Democratic Party never again goes silent for much of the debate season.”While Trump rose consistently through frequent debates with “direct appeals and overtones that were, by any economic definition, fascist in nature,” the Democratic Party was virtually invisible, he said.“I hope that both parties actually take back their debate process from the people responsible for gaining ratings at the cable networks or the other networks,” O’Malley said.“The rules are never drawn in such a way to encourage challengers, but I think in this case we went way beyond tradition. And frankly, I think in the end of the day it was a disservice to our nominee, Secretary Clinton, who certainly is well capable of acquitting herself with knowledge and skill in a debate setting, even in a fair debate,” he said.O’Malley said he is now focused on helping Democrats win governors’ and state legislative seats around the country, including New Hampshire. He has visited Iowa and South Carolina, both of which are key early voting states in presidential elections. He also has been teaching a course at the Boston College Law School.“All of us realize that another election is always around the corner,” he said. “And while many of us as Democrats regard the election of Donald Trump as a grave mistake, great republics are able to correct those mistakes with the next election.“I think you’re going to see more new candidates -- first-time candidates running in these next elections -- than we’ve seen for a long, long time,” O’Malley said. He said wins at the state level are “critically important” to restoring the Democratic Party as the majority party, particularly with governors and state lawmakers responsible for drawing redistricting lines in 2020.Sunday will mark his first visit to New Hampshire since campaigning in the Granite State for Clinton in July 2016.O’Malley said Trump’s overall approach to foreign policy “is certainly of deep concern. I don’t find emotions of anger or fear to be very useful things. But I think all of us as Americans have to be deeply concerned.”“The first job of the president of the United States is to keep us safe. And it’s very hard to evaluate the motives or intent of an administration who professes that its new doctrine is to be totally unpredictable.”“That might be a good way to negotiate settlements in real estate deals,” O’Malley said, “but it’s not a good way to govern the security responsibilities of the world’s great superpower.”He also criticized Trump’s stance toward Syria and its people.“How can we on the one hand say that we will not accept any refugees whatsoever from the war-torn country of Syria and yet feel compelled to lob a couple dozen Tomahawk missiles in because we’re concerned about human rights in Syria?”O'Malley said that the only positive development from the Trump approach to foreign policy was the removal of ultra-conservative former Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon from the National Security Council.“Career military and intelligence people seem to be taking over those roles, so let us hope that saner minds prevail,” O’Malley said. Calls for scrapping electoral collegeO’Malley also said it is time to scrap the Electoral College.“It has served its useful purpose,” he said. “Four times in the last 240 years, we’ve elected president who did not win the popular vote. And two of those time happened just in the last 16 years. It’s kind of hard to keep together the fabric of public trust nationally if that becomes a regular occurrence.“It’s hard to say that we’re a beacon of democracy for the world if have elections and the person who loses the popular vote nonetheless gets sworn in to the presidency,” he said.He also supports public financing of congressional campaigns and a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to vote.“In New Hampshire, the legislature is trying to push things that would make it impossible for any college kids to vote, and put up barriers to voting,” O'Malley said, also calling for a constitutional amendment to overturn the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case.