President Trump, for better of worse, is a master of doling out nicknames to friends and foes.
He’s even better than George W. Bush (although the 43rd president did come up with a great one for senior adviser Karl Rove — “Turd Blossom”).
Trump calls Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) “Pocahontas” for her debunked claims that’s she’s Native American. He calls Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut Democrat who falsely claimed to have fought in the Vietnam War, “Da Nang Dick.” Jeb Bush was, of course, “Low Energy Jeb.” Then there’s “Crooked Hillary,” “Lyin’ Leakin’ James Comey,” “Jeff Flakey,” “Head Clown Chuck Schumer,” and “Mad Maxine Waters.”
So Biden jumping into the nickname game is a big gamble.
And he didn’t, uh, do so well with his first effort.
The former vice president and presumptive Democratic nominee revealed Monday that he’s calling Trump “President Tweety.”
“Trump is out there tweeting again this morning. I call him ‘President Tweety,'” Biden said during a speech to the Asian American and Pacific Islanders Victory Fund. Biden noted that Trump wrote on Twitter, “reopen the country,” then said: “How are we supposed to do that if you’re sitting on the money small businesses need? Stop tweeting about it. Get the money out to Main Street. It’s there. It’s been passed.”
.@JoeBiden to @AAPIVictoryFund:
"Trump is out there tweeting again this morning. I call him President Tweety. ‘Reopen the country’–How are we supposed to do that if you're sitting on the money small businesses need?
Stop tweeting about it. Get the money out to Main Street." pic.twitter.com/vtGmflLUyH— Allie Raffa (@AllieRaffa) May 18, 2020
Trump has long called Biden “Sleepy Joe.” Biden defended himself, saying, “in terms of energy … I don’t have any problem comparing my energy level to Donald Trump.”
In an interview with Snapchat that was posted last week in Vanity Fair, Biden acknowledged that “Trump is a master at laying nicknames on people,” adding that “I’m really resisting giving a nickname to” the president.
But he added, “I can hardly wait to get onto the stage with Donald Trump.”
Biden’s speech on Monday was beset by problems. In the live-streamed appearance from his home in Delaware, he accused Trump of fanning flames of “hate, fear and xenophobia” toward Asian Americans amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic has unleashed familiar forces of hate, fear and xenophobia that he always flames … that have always existed in this society,” Biden said. “But this president brought it with him, has brought with it a new rash of racial messages, verbal and physical attacks and other acts of hate, some subtle, some overt, against the Asian American and Pacific Islanders.”
But Biden was repeatedly interrupted by honking Canada geese at a nearby pond. “You’re going to hear, there’s a pond on the other side of my property here. A lot of Canadian geese. If you hear them honking away, they’re cheering, that’s what they’re about,” Biden said at one point.
There were other distractions: chirping birds, a ringing iPhone and what was presumably a Secret Service agent standing in the background of his camera shot.
A few distractions as Biden speaks: Canadian geese honking, birds chirping, iPhone ringing, Secret Service agent standing in the background. pic.twitter.com/yjOGSbQX8o
— Jennifer Epstein (@jeneps) May 18, 2020
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