President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden are in the middle of what The Washington Post describes as a “rhetorical septuagenarian smackdown over who could clean the other’s clock in a brawl”.
Trump, reacting to comments Biden made about him earlier in the week at an anti-sexual assault rally in Florida, tweeted on Thursday: “Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”
At the University of Miami, Biden cited lewd comments Trump had made in a 2005 “Access Hollywood” tape about grabbing women without their permission.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
“If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” said Biden. He also said any man who disrespected women was “usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room”.
The former vice president faces criticism for the aggressive nature of his comments. They “echo those he made at a Hillary Clinton rally during the 2016 presidential election”, says HuffPost.
“The press always ask me, ‘Don’t I wish I were debating him?’ No, I wish we were in high school – I could take him behind the gym. That’s what I wish,” Biden said at the time.
Though Trump’s “freewheeling Twitter insults have long broken presidential decorum”, says Yahoo News, the Thursday morning tweet about fighting Biden was “nonetheless striking”.
Trump has often railed against Democrats, including Biden and Senator Elizabeth Warren, who, it’s speculated, are considering running against him in 2020.
Talk of a Biden run for the presidency has “persisted since the 2016 campaign, in which it has been claimed he was considered as a last-minute replacement for Hillary Clinton”, says The Guardian.
The former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus said in a speech in Hong Kong this week that Biden could be “a pretty serious candidate”, but he added that he didn’t think a Democratic party moving left in opposition to Trump would embrace such a centralist figure.
At the annual Gridiron Dinner with Washington journalists earlier this month, the US President dismissed the prospect of a Biden run, calling his political opponent “Sleepy Joe” and saying he could “kick his ass”.
Trump also attacked Biden on Twitter in 2016, calling him “Our not very bright Vice President”.
-
Schools: The return of a dreaded fitness testFeature Donald Trump is bringing the Presidential Fitness Test back to classrooms nationwide
-
An insatiable hunger for proteinFeature Americans can't get enough of the macronutrient. But how much do we really need?
-
Health: Will medical science survive RFK Jr.?Feature Robert F. Kennedy Jr. scrapped $500 million in mRNA vaccine research contracts
-
Will Ukraine trade territory for peace?TODAY'S BIG QUESTION Kyiv’s defences are wearing thin but a land swap is constitutionally impossible and crosses Zelenskyy's red lines
-
Russia tries Ukraine land grab before Trump summitSpeed Read The incursion may be part of Putin's efforts to boost his bargaining position
-
Europe counters Putin ahead of Trump summitSpeed Read President Trump will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this week for Ukraine peace talks
-
Is Trump's new peacemaking model working in DR Congo?Talking Point Truce brokered by the US president in June is holding, but foundations of a long-term peace have let to be laid
-
Who wins from a Trump-Putin meeting?Today's Big Question Trump might get the leaders together for a photo op but brokering a peace deal won’t be easy
-
How China uses 'dark fleets' to circumvent trade sanctionsThe Explainer The fleets are used to smuggle goods like oil and fish
-
US and EU reach trade dealSpeed Read Trump's meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen resulted in a tariff agreement that will avert a transatlantic trade war
-
Trump threatens Russia with 'severe tariffs'speed read The president also agreed to sell NATO advanced arms for Ukraine
