Sanders: 'Rocket Man' label is a 'President Trump original'

The “Rocket Man” nickname pinned on North Korean leader Kim Jong Un is a “President Trump original,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Wednesday morning.

President Donald Trump first coined the Elton John-inspired nickname for Kim, whose regime has ramped up its ballistic missile testing in recent weeks, in a post to Twitter over the weekend. The nickname came up again Tuesday in the president’s speech to the UN General Assembly, in which Trump remarked that “Rocket Man is on a suicide mission.”


“Look, that's a President Trump original. As you know, he’s a master in branding,” Sanders said on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends” in response to a question about the nickname’s genesis. “This is a problem that we’ve been dealing with for 20 years. And Americans wanted somebody, a strong leader, somebody who wasn't going to put up with it anymore. That's one of the reasons I think Donald Trump won. They saw strength.”

Trump has used nicknames to great effect in the past, labeling his campaign foes with monikers like “Little” Marco Rubio, “Lyin’” Ted Cruz and “Crooked” Hillary Clinton. But the president’s foray into nicknaming on the foreign policy stage proved controversial, sparking criticism from some concerned about his use of the tactic on a notoriously thin-skinned, nuclear-armed world leader.

POLITICO Playbook newsletter Sign up today to receive the #1-rated newsletter in politics Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt noted the criticism, telling Sanders that “a lot of people in the mainstream media didn’t like the comment, the ‘Rocket Man’ comment,” to which Sanders replied, “that usually means you’re doing something right. If the mainstream media thinks it’s bad, then it’s probably – most Americans probably like it.”

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, too, defended the president’s “Rocket Man” nickname in a separate interview Wednesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America.” Asked by anchor George Stephanopoulos if the use of a nickname was appropriate, Haley said Trump’s rhetoric had stirred international interest in Kim.

“Well, I’ll tell you George, it worked. I was talking to a president of an African country yesterday and he actually cited ‘Rocket Man’ back to me,” she said. “So I will tell you that, look, this is a way of, like, you know, getting people to talk about him. But every other international community now is referring to him as ‘Rocket Man.’”