President Trump and former vice president Joe Biden are both in Iowa Tuesday, as the president and Democratic frontrunner continue to spar.
As CBS News has reported, internal Trump campaign polling shows Mr. Trump trailing the former vice president in key states. As he left the White House Tuesday, Mr. Trump told reporters Biden is “weak mentally,” adding, “I like running against people who are weak mentally.”
“I’d rather run against I think Biden than anybody,” the president told reporters Tuesday. “I think he’s the weakest mentally. And I like running against people that are weak mentally. I think Joe is the weakest up here. The other ones have much more energy. I don’t agree with their policies, but I think Joe is a man who is, I call him one percent Joe. Because until Obama came along he didn’t do very well. But look, but I don’t bring him up.”
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But it’s not entirely accurate that Mr. Trump doesn’t bring up Biden on his own. During his speech on ethanol and renewable fuels in Iowa Tuesday, the president suggested “sleepy Joe” — one of his nicknames for Biden — held Americans hostage to foreign energy suppliers.
“America must never be held hostage to foreign suppliers of energy as we have under sleepy Joe,” Mr. Trump said.
Mr. Trump is in Iowa to speak at the Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy Company, and at a GOP fundraiser, where he’s expected to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars. Iowa has been hard hit by the trade war with China. On his way to Iowa, Mr. Trump insisted he’s the greatest thing that’s ever happened to America’s farmers, touting the $16 billion in subsidies he recently gave the farming community to offset his trade war with China.
The president told those present he’s signing an executive order to speed up reviews of biotech products that could help American farmers.
Mr. Trump’s beef with Biden doesn’t show signs of ebbing.
Last week, Mr. Trump appeared to bash Biden while he was overseas, agreeing with North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un in questioning Biden’s intellectual chops.
“I was actually sticking up for Sleepy Joe Biden while on foreign soil,” Mr. Trump tweeted last month, disputing claims he sided with a dictator over an American former vice president. “Kim Jong Un called him a ‘low IQ idiot,’ and many other things, whereas I related the quote of Chairman Kim as a much softer ‘low IQ individual.’ Who could possibly be upset with that?”
Moments after Mr. Trump returned to American soil, Biden’s campaign manager labeled Mr. Trump’s remarks “beneath the dignity of the office.”
Mr. Trump has yet to publicly kick off his reelection campaign — he’s doing that in Florida later this month — but the president filed for reelection the same day he took office.
