Donald Trump

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has doubled down on a promise that the United States can count on Australia; in the event of military conflict between the US and North Korea, he has committed our nation to coming to the aid of the US. He might soon be called on to keep that promise, with the rhetoric between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un ramping up in recent days.

The protagonists in this perhaps-not-cold-for-much-longer war are both given to grandiloquence, stomping machismo, and out-and-out threats. At the same time, the escalating war of words between two nuclear powers run by impulsive, thin-skinned egomaniacs doesn’t always make the front pages in Australia — after all, we’ve got to discuss whether gay people should allowed to marry, whether people who support that right are bullies, and just where the bloody hell our politicians are from. 

Both sides are keen to prove the size of their intercontinental ballistic missiles, so we have prepared a quiz. Can you tell which of these statements was said by Donald Trump and which by Kim Jong-un? 

To stop it getting too easy, we’ve replaced any country name with “our enemies”  or “our country”, any reference to a job title as “leader”, and any reference to the leaders themselves in the third person (pretty common, as it happens) has been replaced with “me”. Also, given that this is the first prelude to war to play out as much on social media as speeches, we’ve cleaned up some of grammar. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Answers:

  1. (Trump, August 8 2017)
  2. (North Korean state news agency, August 11)
  3. (Kim Jong-Un, April 15, 2012)
  4. (Kim Jong-Un, May 8, 2016)
  5. (Trump, August 11 )
  6. (Trump, August 9)
  7. (Kim Jong-Un, April 15, 2012)
  8.  (Workers’ Party of Korea member Kim Ki-nam speaking at a rally on August 9)
  9. (Korean state news agency, August 15)
  10.  (Trump, August 11)