People Power Party slams President Lee Jae-myung's YouTube outreach: 'He'll become YouTuber Lee'

After President Lee Jae-myung launched 'The President's Y,' a YouTube program for direct communication with the public, on the 5th, the People Power Party (PPP) united in criticism, saying he is 'trapped in the cyber world.'

Pulling rank at the party's Supreme Council meeting at the National Assembly, PPP leader Jang Dong-hyuk mocked that despite seeing 'Democratic Party TV' flop, the Blue House was set to create its own channel, sniping that Lee would become a 'freeloader' who dodges accountability and runs away.

Supreme Council member Shin Dong-wook said, "What the public will see from now on is not President Lee Jae-myung but YouTuber Lee Jae-myung," adding, "A president's direct communication with the people comes with many side effects." Citing U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats on radio, he said, "Since then, it has mostly been dictators or populist politicians who have continued in that vein, monopolizing the airwaves." He went on, "Every evening, the media will focus on the president's remarks, and what worries me more is the possibility of fatal side effects in diplomatic relations," adding, "Why not just keep his mouth shut?"

Supreme Council member Kim Jae-won said at the National Assembly meeting on the 5th, "He is thrusting 'Y' at a public already exhausted by 'X' (formerly Twitter)." Claiming that Lee is "a president given to narcissism and delusions of grandeur who uses state power for personal vendettas," he argued, "Wasn't the poor performance of Democratic Party TV what prompted the president to step in himself? This isn't communication—it's a staged production."

Chief Spokesperson Choi Bo-yoon pointed out in a commentary, "A president who ignores the people asking 'Why' and only turns on his own 'Y'—where has the 'president for all' gone?" He said, "What the people wanted was 'restraint,' but the president's answer was 'expansion.'" He added, "The proverb says the wise are cautious in words and swift in action, but this president is swift in words and slow in accountability." He went on, "The president called social media his 'lifeline,' but a president's lifeline is the public's trust."

Spokesperson Cho Yong-sul urged, "Governing is not about words—it must be proven through results alongside the people on the ground. It's time to step out of the cyber world and into the daily lives of the people."