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President Trump hurled a steady stream of schoolyard insults while Joe Biden warned of the “existential threat” in the White House as the two men traded jabs during dueling Tuesday visits to Iowa, the first state that heads to the polls in next year’s presidential contests.
The Hawkeye State war of words gave an inkling of what voters might have to endure daily if Biden manages to live up to his front-runner expectations and clinch his party’s nomination in 2020.
“Joe Biden is a dummy,” Trump told reporters on the White House lawn before departing for back-to-back events in Council Bluffs and Des Moines.
Minutes earlier, Biden’s campaign had released prepared remarks for a speech he was set to deliver Tuesday evening in Davenport. The remarks were replete with anti-Trump zingers, slamming the president as a petulant egomaniac who’s screwing over American farmers the same way he “stiffed” the blue collar workers who built his skyscrapers.
But Trump countered he’d “rather run against Biden than anybody” because the former vice president is “weak mentally” — a claim at odds with assessments from some of the president’s own confidants.
The president, speaking in Council Bluffs, also claimed Biden is obsessed with him.
“Sleepy Joe, he was some place in Iowa today and he said my name so many times that people couldn’t stand it anymore. Sleepy guy,” Trump said, using his go-to nickname for the ex-veep.
Michael Caputo, a senior adviser on Trump’s 2016 campaign, told the Daily News earlier this year that Biden is actually the last Democrat that Trump wants to face in 2020, citing the former vice president’s “long record of public service,” which he said can help him pick off “voters vital to the president’s coalition” in rural states.
Back in Iowa, on the other side of the state from where Trump was speaking, Biden delivered a lengthy speech slamming Trump as an “existential threat to America.”
“There’s a lot of ways Trump fails the basic standard to be president — but one of them is this: Donald, it’s not about you. It’s about America,” Biden told voters.
Biden went on to take aim at Trump’s “embrace” of Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, calling it “a stunning display of childishness for the whole world to see.”
The former right-hand man to President Barack Obama also trashed Trump’s spotty business record: “How many sleepless nights do you think Trump has had over what he’s doing to America’s farmers? Here’s the answer: Just as many as he had when he stiffed the construction workers and electricians and plumbers who built his hotels and casinos. Zero.”
Biden’s Tuesday trip — his first to Iowa since early May — comes as he faces criticism for skipping out on a major Democratic Party event in Cedar Rapids over the weekend that was attended by 19 of his 2020 rivals.
Biden has also recently drawn intra-party fire for his support of the Hyde Amendment, a federal provision that prevents taxpayer dollars from being used for most abortion services.
The ex-vice president reversed his Hyde support last week after several of his 2020 opponents condemned him and urged him to get on board with repealing the measure, which predominantly impacts low-income women.
Despite ruffling some feathers, Biden retains a double-digit lead in most Democratic primary polls.
A Quinnipiac University survey released Tuesday also gave Biden’s general election prospects a boost, saying he leads Trump by 13% in a national match-up.
Iowans head to the polls for the Democratic caucuses on Feb. 3. Whoever wins that contest will have a significant advantage going into the remaining primary and caucus elections.