President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was offended by North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un after official state media in Pyongyang referred to him as a ‘lunatic old man.’
‘Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?”‘ Trump tweeted on Saturday.
‘Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!’
In a related tweet on Saturday, Trump praised China’s president, Xi Jinping, for ‘upping sanctions against North Korea.’
‘[Xi] said he wants them to denuclearize,’ Trump tweeted. ‘Progress is being made.’
President Donald Trump on Saturday said he was offended by North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un after official state media in Pyongyang referred to him as a ‘lunatic old man’
North Korea’s state-run media denounced Trump as a ‘lunatic old man’ in response to the American president’s speech on Wednesday before the South Korean National Assembly.
‘The US had better make a decisive choice…if it does not want a horrible nuclear disaster and tragic doom,’ the statement from the North Korean government read.
Trump and Kim have been engaged in an exchange of insults – even though the US president has made a concerted effort to be relatively restrained during his current 12-day trip through Asia.
Last month, Trump dismissed the prospect of talks with North Korea as a waste of time a day after his own secretary of state said Washington was maintaining open lines of communication with Kim.
‘I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful secretary of state, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man,’ Trump wrote on Twitter, using his sarcastic nickname for Kim and seeming to contradict the top US diplomat.
In late September, after Trump delivered a blistering speech warning North Korea at the United Nations, Kim released a statement calling the American president ‘a dotard.’
The obscure word is old – late Middle English, or around the 14th century – and means senile old person, someone in their dotage.
On Saturday, Pyongyang accused Trump of making a ‘warmonger’s visit’ to the region – a trip which showed he’s itching for all-out Armageddon on the Korean peninsula.
‘Trump, during his visit, laid bare his true nature as destroyer of world peace and stability and begged for a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula,’ the hermit nation’s foreign ministry spokesman said in a statement carried by the state news agency.
‘Trump made his conceived attempt yet again to alienate our people from the government,’ he said.
The North Korean spokesman said it will not be possible to deter Pyongyang from pursuing a fully fledged nuclear weapons program.
The US president said Wednesday in Seoul, South Korea that the ‘sinister regime’ to the North has become a dangerous menace, and warned dictator Kim Jong-un not to test his patience.
‘Today, I hope I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilized nations, when I say to the North: Do not underestimate us. And do not try us,’ he told South Korea’s National Assembly in an impassioned speech.
Kim’s North Korean regime has branded President Donald Trump a ‘destroyer of world peace’ and claimed he has ‘begged for nuclear war’ with statements he’s made during his Asia trip this month
Trump, shown leaving the Vietnamese city of Da Nang en route to Hanoi on Saturday, has both blasted Kim during his 12-day Asia swing and called on him to cut ‘a deal’ with the West to give up his nuclear ambitions
The US president said Friday in Da Nang that ‘the future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator’s twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail’
Addressing a global audience, he insisted Wednesday that ‘the world cannot tolerate the menace of a rogue regime that threatens it with nuclear devastation.’
‘All responsible nations must join forces to isolate the brutal regime of North Korea – to deny it any form of support, supply, or acceptance.’
In a long soliloquy about North Korea, he said the totalitarian state is the result of ‘a tragic experiment in the laboratory of history … in which leaders imprison their people under the banner of fascism and oppression.’
It’s ‘a country ruled like a cult,’ he said, fueled by ‘a deranged belief in the ruler’s destiny.’
And in a stern, direct message to Kim, he declared: ‘The weapons you are acquiring are not making you safer. They are putting your regime in grave danger. Every step you take down this dark path increases the peril you face.’
‘North Korea is not the paradise your grandfather envisioned, he said of the nation’s founder Kim Il-sung. ‘It is a hell that no person deserves.’
Kim Jong-un’s regime is racing to complete a nuclear missile that can reach the United States, prompting Trump to leave all military options on the table
This July 28 picture released from North Korea’s state news agency shows a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile being test-lauched at an undisclosed place in North Korea
It has been 58 days since North Korea’s last ballistic missile test. The regime had been quiet during Trump’s Asia tour until the early morning hours of Saturday.
Trump continued blasted North Korea on Friday in Da Nang, Vietnam during a speech at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, hammering the totalitarian state for developing nuclear weapons and long-range ballistic missiles to carry them.
‘Earlier this week, I addressed the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea and urged every responsible nation to stand united in declaring that every single step the North Korean regime takes toward more weapons is a step it takes into greater and greater danger,’ he said.
‘The future of this region and its beautiful people must not be held hostage to a dictator’s twisted fantasies of violent conquest and nuclear blackmail.’
And the nation’s hoped-for nuclear weapons, he pledged, are something ‘we are not going to let it have.’
‘We will not allow American cities to be threatened with destruction. We will not be intimidated. And we will not let the worst atrocities in history be repeated here, on this ground we fought and died to secure,’ he said.
Trump’s speech in Seoul comes at a time when he has been waging a war of words against Kim, derisively calling him ‘Little Rocket Man’ for his nuclear missile ambitions.
But on Tuesday he seemed to soften his rhetoric, saying Pyongyang should ‘make a deal’ with the West to stop developing weapons of mass destruction.
Trump warned the North Korean dictator on Wednesday not to tempt fate by threatening the United States with nuclear weapons
‘Today, I hope I speak not only for our countries, but for all civilized nations, when I say to the North: Do not underestimate us. And do not try us,’ Trump warned Kim
Trump told reporters that he had seen a lot of progress in recent days, but wouldn’t say where he stands on the question of direct talks with the despot.
‘It makes sense for North Korea to come to the table and make a deal that is good for the people of North Korea and for the world,’ he said during a press conference with Moon.
At the same time, he held out the possibility that the Pentagon would act with ‘unparalleled strength’ if Kim doesn’t do, in Moon’s words, ‘the right thing.’
During a military briefing at nearby Camp Humphreys on Tuesday, the president promised ‘lots of good answers for you over a period of time.’
‘And ultimately it will all work out,’ he said.
‘It always works out. It has to work out!’
The Hermit Kingdom has ramped up its ballistic missile testing program in recent months, and conducted its sixth nuclear weapon test in September. In all, Pyongyang has sent a dozen missiles into the air this year, but none since September.
Some experts believe Kim will soon be able to reach the continental United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile.
Trump fired off a series of tweets above after his Seoul speech before flying on to China
Three American aircraft carriers and a nuclear submarine are en route to waters off the Korean peninsula, underscoring the seriousness of Trump’s threat to engage.
‘As we work together to resolve this problem using all available tools short of military action, the United States stands prepared to defend itself and it its allies using the full range of our unmatched military capabilities, if need be,’ he threatened on Wednesday.
Trump has said frequently that his predecessors, going back to the Bill Clinton era, have kicked the North Korean can down the road.
‘This is not the right time to be doing it, but that’s what I got. That’s what I got,’ Trump lamented Tuesday of the situation he inherited.
A few hours later he was on Air Force One to China where it was revealed that at the end of his Asia tour, Trump will decide whether to designate North Korea as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters: ‘The president said he’d make a determination at the end of the trip.’
President Obama removed the rogue nation from America’s list of states that sponsor terror in a bid to ease relations.