President Donald Trump crassly referred to former president Joe Biden as “mentally re---ded” twice on Monday.
During a press conference that was supposed to offer additional details on the rescue of two American airmen shot down over Iran last week, the 79-year-old president veered into gloating over North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un’s apparent affinity for him.
“Kim Jong Un, who I get along with very well, as you know. Do you notice he’s said very nice things about me?” Trump asked a jam-packed White House briefing room.
“He used to call Joe Biden a mentally re---ded person,” Trump went on. The president then doubled down on his use of the slur, repeating: “Joe Biden, he said he’s a mentally re---ded person.”
“But to me, he likes Trump,” the president bragged. “And do you notice how nice things are with North Korea?”
During Trump’s first term, senior North Korean official and former nuclear negotiator Kim Yong-chol referred to him as a “heedless and erratic old man.” Kim, for his part, referred to Trump as a “dotard,” or a senile person, who was “mentally deranged.”
This isn’t the first time Trump has referred to his political enemies as the “r-word.” In November 2024, The New York Times reported that Trump had referred to then–Vice President Kamala Harris as “r-----ed” during a Republican donor event at Trump Tower months earlier.
Last November, Trump also took aim at Harris’ former running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, writing in a Thanksgiving message on Truth Social: “The seriously ret----ed Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both.”
Biden, 83, seemed to be present in Trump’s head throughout much of the day. Hours earlier, as Trump wandered around the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll, he sat at a table with a group of young children and started signing autographs.
“Biden would use the autopen,” he told the kids.
“What?” one confused kid could be heard responding. It wasn’t clear whether he was too young to know about the former president or didn’t know what an autopen was.
“He’d have an autopen follow him, Joe Biden,” Trump told the group. “He didn’t sign. He was incapable of signing things, so they’d follow him around with a big machine. You know what it was called? An autopen.”
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
