The Democratic Party of Korea pushed back against Joo Jin-woo, a lawmaker from the People Power Party, who had attacked President Lee Jae-myung for being at a golf course when a shopping mall ceiling collapsed in Daegu, asking whether the president was supposed to be a fortune teller.
Choi Min-hee, a member of the party's Supreme Council, made the criticism at a Supreme Council meeting held at the National Assembly on the 12th, saying Joo "travels back and forth in a time machine and devotes himself only to attacking the president." Choi said the president "received a report on the accident, spoke directly with the acting commissioner general of the National Police Agency to confirm the casualties, and ordered a swift rescue and response." She added: "How can anyone predict an accident? Is the president some kind of fortune teller? Must he receive a divine revelation?"
She then referred to Choo Kyung-ho, the Daegu mayor and a People Power Party local government head in the area where the accident occurred, and said: "Why did Mayor Choo fail to predict and prevent the ceiling collapse in Daegu?" She added, "If I asked that, how would the People Power Party react? They would say, how could Mayor Choo have predicted the accident first."
Of Joo, who raised the allegations, Choi said: "He used this as a pretext to track the president's movements on his day off, and then stirred up chaos by dragging in absurd allegations about the use of special activity funds and even the question of the president's family living in the official residence." She asked, "Is he worried about the accident response, or is he obsessed only with attacking the president?"
She also voiced frustration with media outlets that reported the allegations, saying that "even though the Blue House explained in detail how the response unfolded, the focus of the coverage was Joo Jin-woo-style inflammatory language and political sparring." She added, "A new 'Joo Jin-woo journalism' has been born, in which the press writes that it is pneumonia whenever Representative Joo coughs."
Park Sun-won, another Supreme Council member, said, "Representative Joo's irresponsible allegations and outrageous remarks have gone too far." He countered that the president "did not go off to some private golf course for a vacation" and that "he was in a working posture, in a state where he could receive situation reports and issue orders at any time."
On Joo's claim that President Lee was at a "fitness and recreation facility" at the time of the accident, Park said: "A fitness and recreation facility maintained by the military is a workplace. There are management guidelines requiring that an emergency posture be maintained around the clock, which is why it operates that way." He said, "The president was at the fitness and recreation facility, received a report on the incident, and issued orders."
Park also pointed to Joo's earlier allegation that President Lee had been briefed directly on the special counsel investigation into the National Election Commission, calling it "a complete lie" and saying "the facts are entirely different."
Joo, for his part, held a news conference at the National Assembly on the 11th, criticizing what he called a botched response to the shopping mall ceiling collapse that occurred in Daegu on the 10th, and alleging that "President Lee played imperial golf at Taereung Country Club on Oct. 10." In response, the Blue House said in a notice issued by the spokesperson's office that "President Lee visited the Taereung golf course with his family the previous day and was briefed on the accident on site." It added that he "spoke directly with Kim Jong-cheol, the acting commissioner general of the National Police Agency, received a detailed report on the casualties, including whether there were any deaths and the extent of injuries, and then instructed relevant agencies to devote all efforts to rescuing those involved and to ensure a swift and safe response to the accident."