Washington: Donald Trump let loose on Twitter on Sunday with a shoot-from-the-hip volley of posts referring to North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-Un as “Rocket Man” — and picturing himself taking out Hillary Clinton with a golf ball.
The US leader spoke with South Korea’s President Moon Jae-In, pledging joint “steps to strengthen deterrence and defense capabilities and to maximise economic and diplomatic pressure on North Korea,” according to the White House.
Mr Trump’s own account of the conversation, which kicked off an unbridled salvo of early morning tweets, struck a less diplomatic tone.
“I spoke with President Moon of South Korea last night. Asked him how Rocket Man is doing. Long gas lines forming in North Korea. Too bad!” Mr Trump wrote to his 38 million followers.
He then launched into half a dozen retweets of internet memes celebrating his Make America Great Again campaign theme — topping it off with a GIF montage of himself taking a swing at a golf ball and knocking out his erstwhile Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
Mr Trump is spending the weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey as he prepares to address the UN General Assembly next week.
His latest bout of unbridled tweeting triggered a storm of online reaction — which he slyly acknowledged with a retweet of a Bloomberg article: “What Is Trump worth to Twitter? One analyst estimates $2 billion.”
On Friday, North Korea fired a ballistic missile over the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido, the latest in a series of missile tests defying the international community.
During the 25-minute call, Mr Trump and Mr Moon condemned the latest missile launch by North Korea, pledging to work with the international community to implement the latest UN Security Council resolution, CNN reported.
Kim Jong Un has said Pyongyang’s goal is to achieve military “equilibrium” with the US and “make the US rulers dare not talk about military option”.
