Biden on Trump North Korea rhetoric: ‘It’s beneath the office’

Former Vice President Joe Biden said in a Monday morning interview that President Trump’s recent rhetoric about North Korea’s leader is a “big mistake” that is “beneath the office” of the presidency.

“We are admired not just for the exercise of our power, but the power of our example. And it matters, the way we conduct our discourse. It matters, the way in which we talk,” Biden told NBC’s “Today.”

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“Our leaders have impact on attitudes. And I just think it’s a big mistake and it’s beneath the office,” he added.

Biden was specifically asked his thoughts on Trump’s tweet over the weekend, in which he referred to Kim Jong Un as “short and fat.”

“Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me ‘old,’ when I would NEVER call him ‘short and fat?’” Trump said. “Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!”

“I just think in a context of just — sort of — common decency,” Biden told host Savannah Guthrie.

“I mean, it’s not the way, you know — when your children hear a president referring to anybody that way, I mean, our children are listening. I mean, these things matter.”

The hosts in the interview pressed Biden to provide an example of something he thinks Trump has done well during his tenure.

The former Delaware senator struggled to give an example, joking that “he married very well.”

He then lauded Trump’s choice to keep military personnel stationed in the Middle East that had been placed in the region during the last administration.

Biden in a recent interview expressed openness about a presidential bid but said he is “not sure it’s the appropriate thing” for him to do.

The former vice president’s new memoir, “Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship and Purpose,” is scheduled for release on Tuesday. The book will focus on the death of Biden’s son, Beau Biden, who died of brain cancer in 2015.