TRUMP: N.Korea went too far on Biden

US PRESIDENT Donald Trump issued a rare -- if tepid -- defense of election rival Joe Biden on Sunday, saying Pyongyang’s depiction of him as “a rabid dog” who should be “beaten to death” went a bit too far.

“Joe Biden may be Sleepy and Very Slow,” Trump tweeted, using his derisive nicknames for the former vice president and Democratic 2020 presidential nomination frontrunner, “but he is not a ‘rabid dog.’ He is actually somewhat better than that.”

The president was responding to a conservative commentator’s tweet about a particularly visceral attack on Biden issued Friday by North Korea.

The North’s official KCNA news agency said Biden had shown “the temerity to dare slander the dignity of the supreme leadership” of North Korea.

“Rabid dogs like Biden can hurt lots of people if they are allowed to run about,” the KCNA statement said. “They must be beaten to death with a stick.”

It was not clear what had provoked Pyongyang’s ire. But the angry response came after the Biden campaign released an ad condemning Trump’s foreign policy and saying that “dictators and tyrants are praised, our allies pushed aside.”

The word “tyrants” was heard at the exact moment a picture appeared on the screen of Trump and North Korean leader Kim JongUn shaking hands at their Singapore summit last year.