Fox News host Tucker Carlson sparked controversy on Sunday while defending President Donald Trump's decision to engage with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, despite international condemnation of Kim as an authoritarian who is guilty of systematic human rights abuses.

During an interview on Fox News, Carlson was asked about potential concerns among voters that Trump might be seen as "pandering" to Kim with his often flattering quotes about the North Korean leader and the "chemistry" that Trump says they share.

Carlson said there "is no defending the North Korean regime," which he described as "monstrous and "the last really Stanilist regime in the world."

"On the other hand, you've got to be honest about what it means to lead a country. It means killing people," Carlson continued. "Not on the scale the North Koreans do, but a lot of countries commit atrocities, including a number that we are closely allied with."

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Carlson said that while he "is not a relativist or anything" it is the "nature and life, and certainly the nature of power" to have to choose between "the bad people and the worse people."

"I do think that's how the president sees it," Carlson said. "He's far less sentimental about this stuff."

The star of "Tucker Carlson Tonight" said he believed Trump genuinely likes Kim and sees him as a "competent, scrappy guy," though "he's not an admirer of the atrocities he's committed, obviously."

"It takes a pretty hard man to keep a hold on power in a place like North Korea, so I think Trump respects his toughness"

Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar, who is one of two dozen Democrats seeking the 2020 presidential nomination, criticized Trump's praise of Kim Sunday on CBS' "Face the Nation."

"He goes and gets a letter and says, 'I love the guy,' you know, right in the face of the Warmbier's, who lost their son, Otto," she said, referring to a college student who fas fatally injured while in North Korean custody. "So I am concerned just because of the track record here."

"Talk is good," she said talk alone "doesn't produce anything for national security for America and international security for our allies."

Former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, another Democratic presidential candidate, said Sunday on ABC's "This Week" that Trump is "raising the profile" and "growing the strength of a dictator," while "we haven't gotten anything out of it."

Carlson mocked those – like former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power – who advocate for making humans rights concerns a central focus of U.S. foreign policy considerations as "silly and stupid."

"In the end, what matters is what's good for the United States," he said.

Carlson comments were swiftly condemned by many on social media.

"Someone should ask Tucker Carlson whether part of running a nation is forced abortions by the state," tweeted Courthouse News reporter Adam Klasfeld. Klasfeld also posted a tweet linking to a U.N. report on North Korea's methods of forced abortions.

"Tucker Carlson is a keynote speaker at the forthcoming National Conservatism Conference," tweeted Bill Kristol, a conservative critic of Trump. "I don't know they realized they were signing up to be associated with this."

Tom Nichols, another conservative opposed to Trump, slammed the remarks as evidence that Carlson "has enough money and what he really wants is attention for however much longer his aging, insane demo is going to be alive and watching him."

Carlson's influence with the president appears to be on the rise. He was seen alongside Trump administration officials during Trump's visit to the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. And The New York Times reported last week that Carlson helped influence the president in his decision to order military strikes against Iranian targets after the Islamic Republic allegedly shot down an unmanned U.S. drone.

Many noted that national security adviser John Bolton, a hawk who has advocated for military action against Iran, was absent from the trip to the DMZ. Carlson has called Bolton "demented" for his ongoing belief that President George W. Bush's decision to go to war in Iraq was a good thing and called him "a kind of bureaucratic tapeworm."

"Try as you might, you can’t expel him. He seems to live forever in the bowels of the federal agencies, periodically reemerging to cause pain and suffering – but critically somehow never suffering himself," Carlson said of Bolton.

Carlson is slated to sit down with Trump on Sunday for an interview to air on Fox News on Monday, the Daily Beast reported.