Kim Jong Un Gets Emotional, North Korean Leader Cries During Speech, Says He Failed Country In Crisis

In a rare showing of emotion, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un cried Saturday during a military parade speech and said he failed to steer the country through multiple crises.

“Our people have placed trust, as high as the sky and as deep as the sea, in me, but I have failed to always live up to it satisfactorily. I am really sorry for that,” Kim said in the speech. “Although I am entrusted with the important responsibility to lead this country upholding the cause of the great Comrades Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il thanks to the trust of all the people, my efforts and sincerity have not been sufficient enough to rid our people of the difficulties in their lives.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced North Korea to seal off its border with its largest trading partner, China. The isolated Asian nation is also struggling under international sanctions and the destructive aftermath of recent typhoons.

During the address, Kim again asserted that North Korea does not have any COVID-19 cases. Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification, told Fox News that “it’s likely that a considerable number of people have been infected” in North Korea.

Kim unveiled an intercontinental ballistic missile during the parade in the capital, Pyongyang. He threatened to “fully mobilize” the nation's nuclear capabilities if provoked by outside forces.

“I wouldn’t be duped by Kim’s emotions,” David Maxwell, a North Korea analyst at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, told the New York Post. “The bottom line is that this parade was to demonstrate military capabilities and to lay the groundwork for future blackmail diplomacy against South Korea and the U.S. for concessions after the November elections.”

At a campaign rally Monday in Florida, President Donald Trump called Kim “100% sharp” compared to Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

"Whatever happened to the war we were supposed to be in with Kim Jong-un?” Trump said at the event. Trump has previously vowed to reach a nuclear agreement with North Korea if he wins a second term.

U.S. and North Korea diplomats last met in Sweden in October 2019 for nuclear negotiations, but talks fell through on the first day of discussions. North Korea has increasingly grown frustrated over the lack of an agreement, which would remove sanctions from its economy.

Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has claimed North Korea would never give up its nuclear weapons voluntarily.