During a White House press conference, President Donald Trump claimed that Kim Jong Un used a derogatory term to question Joe Biden’s mental fitness. Trump brought this up while discussing allied nations, including South Korea, which he claimed had not done enough to support the U.S. in its conflict with Iran. He said, “We have 45,000 soldiers in South Korea to protect us from Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well as you know.”
Trump claimed Kim “used to call Joe Biden a mentally r******* person,” and added that Kim “said very nice things about me.” This is not the first time North Korean officials have used such language. In 2023, Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, called Biden “senile” and dismissed his warnings about North Korean nuclear aggression as a “nonsensical remark from the person in his dotage.”
According to The Independent, Trump has consistently attacked Biden’s mental fitness, despite Biden withdrawing from the 2024 presidential race amid health concerns. Trump often boasts about his own mental sharpness, claiming he “aced” a cognitive exam and is the only president to have taken one.
Kim Jong Un’s harsh past words about Trump contradict the image of a warm relationship
Despite Trump’s claims of a warm relationship with Kim, the North Korean leader has also directed harsh criticism at Trump himself. During Trump’s first term, Kim called him a “dotard,” a “frightened dog,” and a “gangster fond of playing with fire.” This contrasts sharply with Trump’s frequent boasts about the “love letters” they exchanged and their three in-person meetings.
One of those meetings was a snap summit at the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on June 30, 2019. Trump and Kim initially sat for a planned 15-minute discussion that stretched to 53 minutes, with Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho eventually joining.
The main goal for the Americans was to reassure Kim that the U.S. was still committed to diplomacy after the previous Hanoi summit collapsed without a deal. Trump had also been making headlines for other foreign policy moves around this time, including arming Iranian protesters through the Kurds.
Once the press left, the mood inside Freedom House turned more serious. Kim was respectful but direct, presenting a list of grievances. He was disappointed about Hanoi and demanded that the U.S. cease its military exercises. Kim felt the U.S. had not reciprocated his concessions, halting long-range missile launches, shutting down his nuclear test site, and beginning to dismantle his satellite launch center.
According to The Diplomat, one American official recalled, Kim’s biggest complaint was that “we were simply taking and not giving.” After about 30 minutes, Kim shifted his tone and reaffirmed his desire for diplomacy to succeed. The meeting ended with an agreement to appoint negotiators who would meet within a few weeks to try to strike a deal.
Outside, Choe Son Hui, North Korea’s top female diplomat, and Steve Biegun, Trump’s special representative for North Korea, reconnected and discussed communication channels. Choe revealed that the “New York channel” had been “turned on” and that her aides were told to respond to any messages from Washington. However, the optimism was short-lived. The U.S. followed up via the New York channel, and North Korea initially responded, but then went silent.
The problem was U.S. military exercises with South Korea. Two weeks after the DMZ summit, North Korea issued a statement claiming Trump had personally committed to suspending military exercises and threatened to resume weapons tests if the August 2019 drills went ahead. North Korea then conducted four rounds of missile launches and unveiled a new submarine capable of launching nuclear-armed missiles.
Back home, Trump was also dealing with Congress fighting over a TSA staffing crisis that was leaving ordinary Americans to bear the cost. Kim’s secret letter to Trump on August 5, the day the exercise began, was far from the warm tone Trump later described. One expert called it “a long lament of raw emotion and unrelenting woe.”
Kim wrote, “I am clearly offended, and I do not want to hide this feeling from you,” and warned, “If you do not think of our relationship as a steppingstone that only benefits you, then you would not make me look like an idiot that will only give without getting anything in return.” Despite 27 letters exchanged between Trump and Kim in 2018 and 2019, August 5 marked the last time Trump would hear from Kim Jong Un.
Published: Apr 7, 2026 12:30 pm