Please see the update at the bottom of this post.
As tensions with North Korea continue to escalate, President Trump chose to favor bombastic language during his first meeting at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, saying “The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Trump also called North Korean leader Kim Jong- Un “Rocket Man” on Twitter, because the President has never met a bad nickname that he didn’t love.
On Thursday, Kim Jon-Un responded with a lengthy statement regarding Trump’s inflammatory U.N. speech, saying that he “unprecedented rude nonsense one has never heard from any of his predecessors.” He continued, saying Trump “insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world” and that “he will face results beyond his expectation.”
Full statement from Kim Jong Un responding to Pres. Trump's UN speech as released in English by the NKorea state news agency KCNA. pic.twitter.com/PFzt8P2gfW
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) September 21, 2017
However, the part that particularly stuck out to many was the closing line, where the North Korean leader referred to Trump as a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard” that he vowed to destroy with fire. “Dotard” isn’t exactly a word that is used too frequently these days, and according to Merriam-Webster, searches for the insult spiked as a result of Kim Jong-Un’s threat.
📈 Kim Jong Un calls Trump a mentally deranged U.S. dotard. Searches for 'dotard' are high as a kite. https://t.co/HztPoLSjXi
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) September 21, 2017
Sure, we may be on the brink of nuclear war, but at least people are bulking up their vocabularies.
UPDATE #1 – 11:00pm EST: North Korea, via its foreign minister, is now threatening to test a hydrogen bomb over the ocean in response to Trump’s issuance of new sanctions.
(Via NBC Nightly News, Merriam-Webster)