Biden Takes Pride in North Korea’s Insults: Campaign Update

(Bloomberg) -- Call it the Pyongyang primary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden has found himself in a war of words with North Korea’s dictator after the country’s state news agency called Biden a “rabid dog” who “must be beaten to death with a stick, before it is too late.”

“It seems that murderous dictator Kim Jong Un doesn’t like me,” Biden responded Friday in statement. “Add him to the list of autocrats who don’t want me to be president — right next to Vladimir Putin. I wear their insults as a badge of honor.”

North Korea was apparently responding to a Biden statement from Oct. 31 criticizing President Donald Trump’s North Korea policy after another missile test. “His ‘love letters’ to murderous dictator Kim Jong Un have delivered little more than made-for-TV moments,” Biden said of Trump.

The Korean Central News Agency’s statement, released Thursday Washington time, also recycled some of Trump’s insults for Biden — though with something lost in the translation. Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” epithet became “Biden not awakened from a sleep.”

Bloomberg Plans $100 Million in Anti-Trump Ads (7:15 a.m.)

Former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will spend $100 million from his personal fortune for a digital advertising campaign against President Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 election, according to the New York Times.

The ads will seek to attack and define Trump in battleground states likely to decide the presidential contest, beginning Friday in Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, the newspaper reported.

Bloomberg has not yet announced whether he will run for president but has taken steps to appear on the Democratic primary ballots in states with early filing deadlines, including Alabama and Arkansas.

Bloomberg is the founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News. -- Elizabeth Wasserman

COMING UP

The major Democratic candidates -- including Biden, Warren, Sanders and Buttigieg -- are scheduled to appear Sunday at the Nevada Democratic Party’s First in the West dinner, a major event that previously has drawn thousands to hear from presidential hopefuls.

Ten candidates have qualified for the fifth Democratic debate, on Nov. 20 in Atlanta: Biden, Warren, Sanders, Buttigieg, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Cory Booker and Tom Steyer.

--With assistance from Elizabeth Wasserman.

To contact the reporter on this story: Gregory Korte in Washington at gkorte@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Wendy Benjaminson at wbenjaminson@bloomberg.net, Max Berley

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