Lee Jae-myung, the South Korean opposition leader, disclosed the serious injuries he incurred from a knife attack during a campaign event. Comparing his injury to an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Lee pointed out the severity of his situation, having spent days in intensive care after surgery. As a leading candidate in the June presidential elections, Lee emphasizes his diplomatic skills and shows commitment to both South Korean and American interests. He faces challenges ahead, including stabilizing South Korea after political upheaval involving former President Yoon Suk Yeol.
It's with a bashful grin that Lee Jae-myung tugs down his starched collar to reveal the half-inch scar where a would-be assassin's blade pierced his neck. The assailant had asked the leader of South Korea's Democratic Party for an autograph in January last year before lunging at him with a camping knife. But compared to President Donald Trump, Lee says unprompted, who had to endure a bullet that went by his ear, I can say that it had less of an impact.
While nobody would minimize July's attempted assassination of Trump near Butler, Penn., the suggestion that his clipped ear was graver than Lee's wound stretches credulity. Trump walked from the dais triumphantly punching the air; Lee was air-lifted to a hospital and spent days in intensive care following a two-hour surgery to repair a sliced jugular vein, with the wound a whisker from severing his carotid artery.
But if contemporary diplomacy demands anything, it is deference to the notoriously skin-thinned 47th U.S. President whether about his golf skill, rally size, or near-death experience. And as the clear frontrunner in South Korea's June 3 presidential election, Lee is already in full statesman mode.
Lee's next test in safeguarding those interests promises to be trickier: restoring stability to South Korea following the tumultuous ouster of former President Yoon Suk Yeol, whose impeachment was confirmed in April following his December 2024 declaration of martial law.
Collection
[
|
...
]