North Korean state media on Wednesday slammed former US vice president Joe Biden as an “imbecile” and a “fool of low IQ” after he criticised leader Kim Jong Un.

Biden, who served two terms as President Barack Obama’s deputy, has been on the campaign trail since announcing last month his candidacy for the Democratic Party nomination in the 2020 presidential election.

It accused Biden of “slandering the supreme leadership” of North Korea a term usually referring to leader Kim and said the former senator had become “reckless and senseless, seized by ambition for power”.

“What he uttered is just sophism of an imbecile bereft of elementary quality as a human being, let alone a politician.”

Trump became the first sitting US president to meet with a North Korean leader when two met in Singapore last year, and he has repeatedly mentioned his good personal relationship with Kim.

While Biden has a gruelling primary campaign ahead against a packed bench of Democratic hopefuls, he is the current frontrunner and many in his party believe he is their best bet to oust Trump from the White House.But infuriated by his comments, KCNA put together a laundry list of Biden’s past gaffes and humiliations.

It went as far back as his university days, during which he once got an F for plagiarism, and later accusations that he had copied a speech by then British Labour party leader Neil Kinnock.

It also mentioned Biden falling asleep during an Obama speech in 2011, saying that it turned him into a “laughing stock”, and criticism of him “for his vulgar acts and words about women and his thoughtless remarks”.