Kim Jong-un Calls Trump a ‘Dotard’ and Twitter Scrambles for a Dictionary

A dotard is “a person, especially an old person, exhibiting a decline in mental faculties” according to the Oxford English Dictionary

donald trump kim jong un north korea
Getty Images; CNN

It’s “Rocket Man” v. “Dotard” in what might be the only petty insult contest backed by nuclear missiles.

Days after Donald Trump gave a speech to the United Nations in which he deployed a new nickname for its dictator Kim Jong-un, the “Rocket Man” himself has replied with some choice disses of his own. In an official statement — no really — Kim calls Trump a “mentally deranged” “dotard” who will “pay dearly.”

A dotard, by the way, is “a person, especially an old person, exhibiting a decline in mental faculties” according to the Oxford English Dictionary.

Trump’s speech Monday at the U.N. focused on North Korea and called out the country’s recent provocative missile tests launched over Japan. If, Trump said, the U.S. is “forced to defend itself and its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea.” Trump added that “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”

“A frightened dog barks louder,” said the statement released Thursday by North Korea and attributed to Kim Jong-un. “I will make the man holding the prerogative of the supreme command in the U.S. pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DPRK.”

“I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged U.S. dotard with fire,” the statement concluded.

Terrifying geopolitical implications aside, it seemed that the North Korean dictator appears to have introduced a wide cross-section of the internet to a savage new word.

https://twitter.com/myyoume_moto/status/911005251804655616

Unfortunately for Trump, while almost no one thinks Kim Jong-un isn’t absolutely terrible, the consensus that quickly emerged is that, judged solely by vocabulary alone, North Korea might have won this round.

https://twitter.com/amyhuntindallas/status/910996782884294657

https://twitter.com/CleverLater/status/910999046759657473

https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/911003630517542913

That doesn’t mean the whole — let’s be honest, terrifying — situation doesn’t also resemble a bad rap battle.

https://twitter.com/jeb_comrade/status/911005906380509184

But just in case we forget the stakes:

Ross A. Lincoln

Ross joined TheWrap as a news editor in 2017; he was previously associate editor at Deadline from 2015-2017, and before that comics editor at The Escapist, and features editor at Game Front. As a writer, in addition to TheWrap his bylines can be found at Deadline, Box Office, The Los Angeles Times, LA Weekly, The…

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