North Korean defector Yeonmi Park reveals shock U-turn six years after her hatred of Trump turned her into a liberal media darling

North Korean defector Yeonmi Park was shocked when Donald Trump paid a friendly visit to Kim Jong Un in 2019, describing the visit as a sign of a “weak man who has failed to fulfill his campaign promises to the nation.”

But just six years later, she has turned her disdain around and openly supports the Republican presidential candidate.

“I am a survivor of a socialist system in North Korea and I will be voting for @realDonaldTrump this November,” she wrote on X.

“Our American system, call it Americanism, call it capitalism, call it whatever you want, offers each of us a tremendous opportunity if we seize it with both hands and make the most of it.”

It marks a stunning turnaround for Park, who told DailyMail.com she was “beloved by the liberal media” when she crooned their tune. She was even profiled in the New York Times as a result.

But now that she has announced her change, she says she is being harassed by internet trolls.

Park used the hashtag ‘MAGA24’ in her post in which she posted three photos of herself.

In the first photo, she posed outside a building with an American flag, and the last two were sipping wine at the Tiffany & Co. Blue Box cafe, with Chanel pearls draped around her neck.

Park said she is “grateful that Trump did not arrest and jail me, as North Korean dictators would do” if she had expressed her displeasure with leaders in her home country.

“That was my privilege, to have freedom of speech, so I don’t regret it. We have the right to be wrong in democracy,” she told DailyMail.com

Park fled North Korea for China in 2007, when she was 13, moved to South Korea and then settled in the United States. She has spoken repeatedly about the horrors of life under the dictatorship, but has come under intense scrutiny for alleged inconsistencies in her recollections.

Her support is the latest in a gradual shift from the disdain she showed for Trump’s leadership in 2019.

She subsequently wrote an op-ed for The Hill accusing Trump of “shrinking my chances of coming back.” [to North Korea] alive and free.’

In the piece, Park accused Trump of “going where other American presidents would not go” by “legitimizing the Kim regime” with photo ops.

“State media celebrates and publicizes these occasions. They send a signal to the rest of the country that the regime is here to stay. You give this to the regime for free, Mr. President. I thought you told us you were a good negotiator?” she wrote.

‘Would you have congratulated yourself on being the first president to visit Auschwitz, not as a liberator, but as a ”friend” of Hitler?’

She accused Trump of bowing to Kim Jong Un in an “obvious” attempt to “pretend you’ve accomplished something,” and argued: “Only a weak man would give in to criminals. Only a weak man who has failed to keep his campaign promises to the nation.”

“I am not asking Americans to wage war to liberate them. But I am asking you not to collude with the criminal Kim regime or to obstruct others from working for the freedom of my people. I am asking this for selfish reasons. I want to go home someday.”

Her thoughts were also published in the New York Times, with a direct call to Trump, as “leader of the free world,” to “hold the worst dictator on Earth accountable.”

Today she told DailyMail.com that her willingness to be “one of the biggest proponents of speaking out against Trump” stemmed largely from her denunciation of “corruption” within the media.

“I was one of the biggest Trump supporters, so I was beloved by the mainstream media at the time. I was literally on every mainstream media outlet criticizing Trump. I was on the front page of the New York Times criticizing Trump,” she said.

“But years later, when I questioned government policies, massive mandates and everything that was happening, they came to question my legitimacy because my positions did not match theirs.”

She added that she felt the tide turn against her during the pandemic as she questioned government policies around mandates and became a more outspoken advocate for conservative values ​​and the Republican Party, but it wasn’t until this week that she publicly confirmed she would vote for Trump.

That moment made her question her own understanding of how other people’s opinions of Trump had shaped her own, and she’s since come to realize that she “loves America more than [she] ‘hate every politician’.

“I love this country. I love this Constitution. For other people, I think, their hatred for a particular politician transcends their love for the country.

“Kim was actually afraid of Trump,” she said, noting that North Korea had stopped testing long-range missiles during his presidency.

“I think the world has become a lot less safe since Biden came into office. What we need is a strong leader who can make them behave. Trump can do that.”

Critics allege that Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has been receiving praise from left-leaning publications since her presidential campaign began on July 21, despite the fact that she has repeatedly refused press interviews.

Former Republican congressman Zach Wamp said last week that the current vice president was on a “honeymoon.”

He told Sky News Australia: “The media is helping to repackage her a bit as if she’s not a progressive and she’s not a true liberal. Nobody’s really holding her to account.”

Meanwhile, Trump supporters have long alleged that he is not being treated fairly.

Polls across the country show the gap between the two candidates narrowing as Joe Biden withdraws from the race, especially in key states.

And an exclusive poll conducted by JL Partners for DailyMail.com shows that public confidence in the 78-year-old Trump’s ability to perform the country’s most important job is declining.

Voters are now less confident that the former president can fully handle national security briefings, hold his own in a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin or even survive a full four-year term than they were when they were last asked in March.

Park has received a lot of backlash online since her endorsement, including insults and accusations of “selling” her morals to the Republican Party.

She said she has never met Trump and that she has made up her mind like all other American voters.

She also holds no grudge against her critics.

Instead, she welcomes the criticism because it is also a direct reflection of her new life in the United States.

“I left North Korea for a reason. I love living in a country where I can hear different opinions. I want to live in a country where people can have different opinions. Criticism is the privilege of living in a free country.

“That’s why I can’t support anyone who believes in cancel culture.”