Joe Biden Responds To Trump Parroting North Korean Propaganda About Him
President Donald Trump spent Memorial Day weekend in Japan, where ― despite being an ocean away ― he seemed more than a little preoccupied with Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden.
Trump set the tone Sunday with a tweet in which he both downplayed recent North Korean short-range missile tests and parroted a recent piece of North Korean propaganda attacking the former vice president.
Now that Memorial Day has passed and Trump is headed back to the U.S., Biden’s team has responded.
“The president’s comments are beneath the dignity of the office,” deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said in a statement.
She continued:
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.
For comparison’s sake, here’s Trump’s original tweet, which he sent early Sunday local time, just prior to joining Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for a round of golf and watching a few sumo wrestling matches. (And here’s more on the anti-Biden propaganda piece, released by the state-run Korean Central News Agency last week.)
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?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2019
The next day, Trump again parroted the North Korean propaganda in a press conference. He was asked by a reporter, “Does it give you pause at all to be appearing to side with a brutal dictator instead of with a fellow American — the former vice president, Joe Biden?”
Trump responded: “Well, Kim Jong Un made a statement that Joe Biden is a low-IQ individual. He probably is, based on his record. I think I agree with him on that.”
The comments even prompted criticism from Trump’s fellow Republicans. Rep. Pete King (R-N.Y.) tweeted a helpful reminder that it’s “never right to side with murderous dictator vs. fellow American.”
Wrong for @POTUS Trump to criticize @JoeBiden in Japan and to agree with Kim Jong-un. Politics stops at water’s edge. Never right to side with murderous dictator vs. fellow American.
— Rep. Pete King (@RepPeteKing) May 27, 2019
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a military veteran who served in Iraq, agreed with King’s assessment.
It’s Memorial Day Weekend and you’re taking a shot at Biden while praising a dictator. This is just plain wrong. https://t.co/2ONOGEmy39
— Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) May 26, 2019
The president followed up his North Korean endorsement by sending a puzzling series of tweets on Memorial Day attacking Biden for the then-senator’s support of the 1994 crime bill. That legislation has been criticized for encouraging the disproportionate incarceration of people of color and President Bill Clinton has apologized for signing it into law. But any criticism from Trump is woefully misplaced, especially given his role in whipping up public anger against the (wrongly accused) Central Park Five just a few years earlier.
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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.