Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) on Monday slammed President Donald Trump as a “man-child” for publicly praising North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un and severely scaling back joint U.S. military exercises with longtime ally South Korea after initially hoping to cancel them entirely.
Pocan appeared on the MS NOW program “The Last Word” after Trump cited his “very good relationship” with Kim in a Truth Social post Sunday and claimed scaling back exercises with South Korea was “unrelated” to their decision not to help America denuclearize Iran.
“South Korea is our sixth biggest trading partner on the planet,” Pocan told guest host Symone Sanders Townsend on Monday.
He continued, “It’s one of our very best allies that we have. And Donald Trump is just proving he’s America’s most obnoxious man-child once again in doing this. But to side with Kim Jong Un over our sixth biggest trading parter is beyond comprehension.”
The Wisconsin Democrat explained that he recently traveled to South Korea with a bipartisan congressional study group that regularly visits the country and several other nations specifically “because of the importance of their relationship to the United States.”
Trump appeared indifferent to their efforts in his social media screed Sunday.
“Based on my very good relationship with Kim Jong Un, of North Korea, I am not happy with the fact that the United States has, long ago, ordered to participate in Joint Military Exercises with South Korea,” the president wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He added, “Therefore, and based on the fact that it is too late to cancel, I have instructed Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to substantially reduce the Joint Military Exercises! While somewhat unrelated (?), I recently asked the President of South Korea if they would like to join us in the Denuclearization of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and they said, ‘No thanks!’”
Pocan noted this is all the more frustrating because Trump used tariffs to secure a $350 billion investment commitment from South Korea, and that one of the main reasons he traveled there was ahead of “another big development” South Korea planned to announce.
“And instead Donald Trump figures out a way to blow up something with an ally, something that’s about to benefit the people of our country who are paying too much right now because of those tariffs for groceries and everyday goods,” Pocan said Monday.
The lawmaker noted, “It’s almost incomprehensible. It’s impossible to understand why he would do this at this time other than he just thinks he has this magical relationship with Kim Jong Un — who right now is providing troops to Russia to fight Ukraine.”
Pocan argued further that the president’s stated aim of denuclearizing Iran clashes starkly with his respect for North Korea, as the totalitarian dictatorship has nuclear weapons themselves — and “could potentially send something towards the United States.”
Watch the full “Last Word” segment on MS NOW’s YouTube account.