VIENTIANE, LAOS — President Obama axed a meeting with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte after Duterte called Obama a “son of a bitch” on Monday.
The two leaders were supposed to meet at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Summit in Laos on Tuesday.
Duterte told reporters in the Philippines that if Obama asked him about the killings of more than 2,000 suspected drug runners since he took office in June, he would cuss him out.
“I am a president of a sovereign state and we have long ceased to be a colony,” Duterte told reporters before leaving for Laos, according to the Associated Press.
“I do not have any master except the Filipino people, nobody but nobody. You must be respectful. Do not just throw questions. Putang ina I will swear at you in that forum,” he said, using the Tagalog phrase for son of a bitch, according to the Associated Press.
Duterte apparently thinks he can show people how tough he is by swearing at them. He’s already on record cussing out the pope and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
