President Joe Biden called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un the president of South Korea at a closed-door fundraiser Portola Valley, California Friday.

Biden, 81, was going after his 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, for praising the North Korean leader after they met a handful of times during the Republican’s administration. 

The president talked of Trump’s pride from ‘love letters from South Korean president Kim Jong Un.’ 

The president of South Korea is Yoon Suk Yeol, who Biden has met a number of times – including at a White House state dinner, an official trip to South Korea and a summit at Camp David – since Yoon was elected in 2022.

Since being sworn-in, Biden has worked carefully to cultivate relationships with the leaders of South Korea and Japan to counter the rise of China. 

President Joe Biden (right) walks with Rep. Anna Eschoo (right) ahead of a fundraiser Friday in San Francisco. In the camera-free campaign event, Biden accidentally said that Kim Jong Un was the leader of South Korea 

81-year-old Biden (left) has met the president of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol (right) on a number of occassions, including at an April 2023 White House State Dinner. Yoon performed a rendition of Don McClean’s American Pie at the glitzy White House gathering 

The flub comes a week after the president called Japan ‘xenophobic’ at another private event with donors. 

At a fundraiser at D.C.’s glitzy Mayflower Hotel to mark the start of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the president talked about why he believed the U.S. economy was stronger than several Asian nations. 

Biden was trying to take a jab at former President Donald Trump for talking about the ‘love letters’ he exchanged with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un (pictured) 

‘Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic,’ Biden said. ‘They don’t want immigrants,’ the president surmised. 

In the aftermath of the ‘xenophobic’ comment, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre never said if the president meant what he said. 

‘I think the broader, the broader, the broader case that he was trying to make, which I think most, most leaders and allies across the globe understand, is he was trying – he was saying that when it comes to, when it comes to, when it comes to who we are as a nation, we are a nation of immigrants, that is in our DNA,’ she answered when asked if the slight was intentional – and if Biden planned to apologize. 

In the past when Biden has made gaffes, Jean-Pierre’s noted how commonplace it is for people to make slips of the tongue. 

Voters, however, have remained skeptical that Biden – the country’s oldest president – is up to a second term. 

The Biden campaign has tried to fight fire with fire, highlighting it online when Trump makes a gaffe or stumble.

The president’s Kim Jong Un oops comes as the North Korean dictator was already in the news – for claims contained in Gov. Kristi Noem’s book that the two met face-to-face. 

Noem, who was already embroiled in a dog-killing scandal, also came under fire when she said she had met Kim in person while serving in Congress in the pages of the new book.

Since then, her spokesperson told DailyMail.com that the passage is coming out, placing blame on a ‘ghostwriter.’  

‘It was brought to our attention that the upcoming book “No Going Back” has two small errors,’ spokesperson Ian Fury said. ‘This has been communicated to the ghostwriter and editor.’ 

‘Kim Jong Un was included in a list of world leaders and shouldn’t have been,’ Fury said.

Noem has had a series of awkward interviews as well, where she’s refused to say how the anecdote about meeting Kim appeared in the book.