A Florida congressman apologized Monday for invoking an insensitive stereotype in a joke aimed at Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.
“Why am I getting the feeling that she wanted to eat dog with Kim Jong Un?” Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz wrote on X in response to a clip of Noem promoting her upcoming book on “CBS Mornings.”
Noem’s book includes a false claim about a meeting with the North Korean leader and a true anecdote about her killing her “untrainable” 14-month-old hunting dog.
Moskowitz was called out by Politico reporter Nicholas Wu, who noted the Florida Democrat was “using a stereotype here about Asians and dogs.”
“I made a joke about 2 specific people. No one else,” Moskowitz wrote in response to Wu’s tweet.”However, I would never want to be insensitive and feed into a stereotype.”
The congressman also deleted the X post.
“I took the post down as I didn’t want it to be misconstrued and offend the broader community,” Moskowitz told Politico. “I condemn those stereotypes and would never want to feed into them.”
The House of Representatives’ only two Korean American Democrats thanked Moskowitz for deleting the tweet and apologizing.
“While we appreciate our colleague standing up to GOP extremism, we cannot perpetuate harmful stereotypes in the process,” Reps. Andy Kim (D-N.J.) and Marilyn Strickland (D-Wash.) said in a statement. “We thank Rep. Moskowitz for apologizing and taking down his tweet.”
It’s not the first time Moskowitz has fired off a tweet that he has later regretted.
In March, the congressman posted — and then deleted — an image on X of President Biden, wide-eyed upon encountering Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) as he prepared to deliver his State of the Union address, alongside a photo of “Euphoria” star Sydney Sweeney in a revealing outfit.
The juxtaposition of the photos made it appear as if Biden, 81, was staring at Sweeney’s cleavage.
“It was inappropriate. I took it down,” Moskowitz said of the March 8 post.
