President Donald Trump responded to North Korea after its state-run news agency attacked former Vice President Joe Biden as a “rabid dog” who should “be beaten to death with a stick.”
In a Sunday morning tweet addressed to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump expressed mild disapproval of the verbal assault, stating, “Biden may be Sleepy and Very Slow, but he is not a ‘rabid dog.’”
“He is actually somewhat better than that, but I am the only one who can get you where you have to be,” the president said, ending his message by encouraging Kim to “get the deal done” on denuclearization. Virtually no progress has been made on the issue.
On Thursday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency threatened the Democratic presidential candidate after he criticized Trump’s foreign policy and called Kim a “murderous dictator.”
“Anyone who dare slanders the dignity of the supreme leadership of the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea], can never spare the DPRK’s merciless punishment whoever and wherever,” it said. “And he will be made to see even in a grave what horrible consequences will be brought about by his thoughtless utterances.”
The agency continued, “Rabid dogs like Biden can hurt lots of people if they are allowed to run about. They must be beaten to death with a stick, before it is too late,” adding that the former vice president’s demise would “be beneficial for the U.S. also.”
Hitting back at the remarks, Biden’s campaign spokesperson Andrew Bates told The Associated Press that it was a sign of Kim’s fear of the 2020 hopeful.
“It’s becoming more and more obvious that repugnant dictators, as well as those who admire and ‘love’ them, find Joe Biden threatening,” Bates said. “That’s because he’d restore American leadership in the world on day one by putting our security, interests and values at the heart of our foreign policy.”
Unlike North Korea’s treatment of Biden, its regime has praised Trump, including after the ouster of former national security adviser John Bolton.
Following Bolton’s departure in September, Kim Myong Gil, North Korea’s chief negotiator for denuclearization talks, reportedly applauded Trump’s “more practical point of view” in pushing out the “troublemaker who used to face everything out of his anachronistic way of thinking.”
Trump has also spoken highly of Kim in the past, referring to the dictator as a “great leader” whose country has “a tremendous future.”