As the United States stands on the brink of war with North Korea, a growing number of congressional democrats are worried about the erratic posturing of president Donald Trump. “We don’t know if Trump knows what his North Korea policy is,” says Sen. Ben Cardin. Well, Cardin’s concerns were amplified yesterday when Trump signaled that he might not even know who is running North Korea. Seriously.
Trump isn’t fond of details, at least outside of his golf courses. He’s always seen himself as more of a big showman. So it may not be altogether surprising that he doesn’t know the name of the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong-un. But he should. Trump is, after all, claiming that all options are on the table, including war with the Asian country.
How do we know that Trump might not know the North Korean dictator’s name? Yesterday, President Trump referred to Kim Jong-un as “this gentleman” twice, and seemed to be confused about the fact that President Bill Clinton was dealing with his father, Kim Jong-il.
In an interview on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning, Trump told Ainsley Earhardt:
“They’ve been talking with this gentleman for a long time. You read Clinton’s book, he said, ‘Oh, we made such a great peace deal,’ and it was a joke.
You look at different things over the years with President Obama. Everybody has been outplayed, they’ve all been outplayed by this gentleman and we’ll see what happens. But I just don’t telegraph my moves.”
However, “this gentleman” ― presumably current dictator Kim Jong Un ― has only been running North Korea since the 2011 death of his father, Kim Jong Il, who ran the country since 1994. Kim Il Sung ― the current leader’s grandfather ― ruled from the nation’s founding in 1948 until his death in 1994, during the first term of the Clinton presidency.
Watch the clip below:
The interview drew a sharp reaction on Twitter:
Yes, Trump said that he doesn’t “want to telegraph what I’m doing or what I’m thinking.” Which might be for the best if what he’s thinking is that Kim Jong-il is still in power.
This slip-up was only the most recent comment that caused confusion about whether Trump is all there mentally. The president had to be corrected when recounting the story of his recent strike on Syria.
“So what happens is I said we’ve just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq and I wanted you to know this. And [Xi] was eating his cake. And he was silent,” Trump told a giddy Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo. But she quickly corrected him, saying that the missiles had been launched at Syria.
We’re going to go to war because Trump can’t remember what country we’re supposed to be at war with, aren’t we?
