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“We’re in a country where a friend of mine is a very powerful leader, and my friend of mine is right here,” Trump said. “The reason I call him the general is because he’s both, and he’s good at both, he’s done a fantastic job.”

“They have very little crime, because they don’t play games, that’s why. They don’t play games like we do, in the United States, with governors that have no idea what they’re doing,” the U.S. president continued. “But they don’t have crime. I ask about crime, and they almost don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

Egypt is categorized as “not free” by an analysis from Freedom House, a democracy advocacy organization that formed to rally the world against the threat of Nazi Germany nearly a century ago. Political opposition in Egypt is nearly nonexistent. Civil liberties that are currently taken for granted in the U.S., such as the right to protest or the freedom of the press, are choked by the tight fist of the Egyptian government, which has been dominated by the military since a 2013 coup.