Donald Trump, the US president, has revealed that he considered sending former basketball star Dennis Rodman as an envoy to North Korea instead of well-educated "stiffs" who graduated from top universities. The president made the revelation after he was asked in a Thursday interview with Fox Sports Radio if he had ever discussed basketball with Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, during their nuclear deal talks in 2018 and 2019. "Well he really does like Dennis Rodman," Mr Trump replied, referring to the retired National Basketball Association (NBA) celebrity who played for the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers among other top teams. "I always said Dennis would be better than some of these stiffs that they used to send to get to know him. They send these people over and they went to Harvard and were great students... but they have no chemistry whatsoever." He added: "And I said we should maybe use him instead of somebody who graduated number one at Harvard, maybe we should use that, I thought about that."