North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says President Donald Trump’s remarks to the United Nations threatening the hermit country reflect “mentally deranged behavior,” according to a statement released by North Korea’s news agency, KCNA.
In the statement, Kim says North Korea will make the US leader “pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the DPRK.”
Kim also states that North Korea will consider countermeasures because “Trump has denied the existence of and insulted me and my country in front of the eyes of the world.”
Asked to respond to Kim’s statement, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told CNN Thursday night, “Not at this time.”
The release of Kim’s statement comes after North Korea’s foreign minister delivered a scornful response to Trump’s threat, likening it to the sound of “a dog barking.”
Ri Yong Ho, who is in the US for the United Nations General Assembly, said he “felt sorry” for the President’s advisers after a fiery speech to the UN on Tuesday.
In his debut address to world leaders, Trump vowed to “totally destroy” North Korea if the US was forced to defend its allies.
Referring to Kim by a nickname he first used in in a tweet Sunday, Trump said: “Rocket man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime.”
Trump announced an expansion of sanctions on North Korea Thursday and praised China for taking action to limit financial transactions with the isolated communist nation.
