Trump Threatens “Little Rocket Man”, Says Kim “Won’t Be Around Much Longer” As North Korea Holds Huge Anti-US Rally

Originally appeared at ZeroHedge

The war of words between Trump and Kim escalated once again in the late hours on Saturday night, when President Trump sent another belligerent tweet directed at North Korea saying that if the country’s foreign minister was speaking for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in his threatening speech at the United Nations, “they won’t be around much longer.”

“Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”

Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 24 September 2017

The president referred to a speech by North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho earlier Saturday at the United Nations in which he called Trump “a mentally deranged person full of megalomania” who is holding “the nuclear button.” Ri said by repeatedly calling Kim “Rocket Man,” Trump is making “our rocket’s visit to the entire U.S. mainland inevitable all the more.” The foreign minister also said Trump is a “gambler who grew old using threats, frauds and all other schemes to acquire a patch of land.” Ri jumped into the nickname game as well, saying  Americans call Trump the “Commander in Grief,” “Lyin’ King,” and “President Evil.”

Just prior to Ri’s UN speech, the Pentagon announced that USAF B-1B bombers and F-15 jets carried out a show of force Saturday off the coast of North Korea. The statement said that it was “the farthest point north of the Demilitarized Zone, which separates North and South Korea, that any U.S. fighter or bomber aircraft has flown in the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, on Saturday a huge rally gathered Saturday in Pyongyang’s Kim Il Sung Square for a large anti-U.S. protest. According to AP, a parade of marchers carried signs with slogans such as “decisive revenge” and “death to the American imperialists.” They shouted phrases such as “total destruction,” according to the Korean Central News Agency, the state news service.

The crowd included workers, officials and students, KCNA said.

The rally capped two days of response to Trump’s combative speech at the United Nations earlier in the week. The U.S. president mocked Kim as a “Rocket Man” on a “suicide mission,” and said that the U.S. “will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea” if forced to defend itself or its allies. North Korea responded on Friday by distributing a rare statement directly from Kim. He called Trump a “mentally deranged U.S. dotard,” and said his country would consider the “highest level of hard-line countermeasure in history.”