Former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign criticized President Donald Trump for agreeing with remarks apparently made by North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, who, according to Trump, called Biden a “low IQ individual.”
Trump tweeted: “North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me. I have confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me, & also smiled when he called Swampman Joe Biden a low IQ individual, & worse. Perhaps that’s sending me a signal?”
Trump later confirmed the remarks during a press conference, saying Kim “made a statement that Joe Biden is a low IQ individual.” Trump said that the remark “probably is based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.”
Kate Bedingfield, Deputy Campaign Manager and Communications Director for Joe Biden, responded by saying: “The President’s comments are beneath the dignity of the office. To be on foreign soil, on Memorial Day, and to side repeatedly with a murderous dictator against a fellow American and former Vice President speaks for itself. And it’s part of a pattern of embracing autocrats at the expense of our institutions — whether taking Putin’s word at face value in Helsinki or exchanging ‘love letters’ with Kim Jong Un.”
Tim Murtaugh, Director of Communications for Trump 2020, fired back in a statement, saying: “That’s rich coming from Joe Biden, who bashed President Trump while standing on foreign soil earlier this year in Germany. But unlike the Obama-Biden administration, which failed to make any progress with North Korea, President Trump has actually increased pressure and gotten them to the negotiating table. If you want an example of ‘siding with a murderous dictator,’ how about the disastrous Iran nuclear deal? Or failing to follow through on the ‘red line’ with Syria? From the Iraq war to the Russia reset, Joe Biden has been wrong on virtually every foreign policy call in the last four decades. Just ask former Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates.”
Murtaugh’s comment about Biden’s remarks overseas stems from a trip Biden took to Germany in February where he bashed the policies of the Trump administration and said that America was “an embarrassment.”
“The America I see values basic human decency, not snatching children from their parents or turning our back on refugees at our border. Americans know that’s not right,” Biden told the Munich Security Conference. “The American people understand plainly that this makes us an embarrassment. The American people know, overwhelmingly, that it is not right. That it is not who we are.”
Earlier this month, Gates told CBS News’ “Face the Nation” that he stands by a statement in his memoir where he said that Biden has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.”
Trump then fired off another shot at Biden, tweeting: “I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil. Kim Jong Un called him a ‘low IQ idiot,’ and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer ‘low IQ individual.’ Who could possibly be upset with that?”