In Japan, Trump Defends Kim Jong Un and Attacks ‘Low IQ’ Joe ‘Bidan’
As his constituents
back home headed into a long Memorial Day weekend, Donald Trump continued his
track record of embarrassing himself on the world stage by praising a brutal
dictator and attacking an American political opponent.
While there is no
limit to Trump’s depravity, his tweet Saturday praising North Korean dictator Kim
Jong Un—while Trump is in Japan, no less—and attacking Democratic presidential
candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden somehow reaches a new low. In a
normal world, Trump would be impeached over this tweet alone.
On Saturday, Trump’s
national security adviser, John Bolton, said that missile
tests conducted by North Korea earlier this month violated U.N. Security
Council resolutions designed to rein in the country’s nuclear weapons and
ballistic missiles programs. Speaking in Tokyo ahead of Trump’s visit, Bolton
told reporters, “The UN Security Council resolution prohibits the launch of
any ballistic missiles and there is no doubt that North Korea has violated the
resolution,” CNN reported.
But later, Trump contradicted
his own national security adviser, said he wasn’t concerned about the
missile tests, and attacked a political rival on foreign soil. All in one
tweet.
“North Korea fired
off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not
me,” Trump tweeted. “I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise
to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Bidan a low IQ individual,
& worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”
After being skewered
on social media, Trump deleted the tweet and reposted
the same comment with Biden’s name spelled correctly. None of the other
offensive statements were changed.
Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe then went golfing.
Later, Trump tweeted another
attack against his political rivals, likely telling a whopper of a lie in
the process. “Great fun and meeting with Prime Minister @AbeShinzo,” Trump wrote. “Numerous
Japanese officials told me that the Democrats would rather see the United
States fail than see me or the Republican Party succeed – Death Wish!” I’m
pretty sure “numerous Japanese officials” didn’t say that, but who knows.
On Sunday, White
House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tried to deflect
and spin Trump’s comments, saying that Kim and Trump “agree in their
assessment” of Biden.
“I think they agree
in their assessment of former Vice President Joe Biden,” Sanders told NBC’s
Chuck Todd. Seconds later, she said, “The president doesn’t need somebody else
to give him an assessment of Joe Biden. He’s given his own assessment a number
of times…We shouldn’t even be in the position that we’re in to have to deal
with North Korea at the level we are, if they [Obama and Biden] had done their
job in the first place.”
She added that Trump “still feels good” about his relationship with Kim.
And that’s where we’re at on this Memorial Day weekend.