Trump-Biden feud a preview of 2020 U.S. election?
TRUMP-BIDEN SPAT REFLECTS STATE OF DISCOURSE IN 2018
Well he started it! America got a foretaste of how the 2020 U.S. presidential election race could shape up as Donald Trump and Joe Biden, both septuagenarians, threatened to physically attack each other.
Biden, 75, 6-foot-0 and weighing about 180 pounds, started the fight talk Tuesday at an anti-sexual-assault rally at the University of Miami.
“A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, ‘I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it.’ If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,” said the Democrat. “I’ve been in a lot of locker-rooms my whole life,” Biden continued.” I’m a pretty (darn) good athlete. Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.”
Trump, 71, 6-foot-3 and weighing 239 pounds, kept his powder dry Wednesday but hit back with a tweet on Thursday morning.
“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!” said the Republican president.
Vice-President Mike Pence appeared to show his bias for Trump when asked who would win such an encounter.
“You know who I’d be betting on,” Pence said, laughing during a radio interview.
“It’s just a little bit of trash talk going on, just got to make you chuckle in American politics today,” he added.
Some pundits, however, were quick to point out that Biden played football in high school, lifted weights and jogged with Barack Obama during their time in the White House. Trump is known for playing golf — a lot.
Biden has not said whether he wants to take on Trump in 2020, although some polls have pencilled him in as a front-runner.
CNN analyst Harry Enten said we were probably seeing the first signs of a matchup that could go all the way to 2020. “This all feels like a preview of a Biden and Trump faceoff come 2020,” he wrote.
“My guess is that the (spat) we’re seeing between Biden and Trump today is just the first of many.”
Dan Balz, writing in The Washington Post, was disgusted with the tone of the language. “That is what passes for political discourse these days, two grown men acting like macho little boys.”
He added, “There are any number of unsavoury aspects to the exchange. One obviously is the sheer idiocy of this kind of talk between politicians at the level of Trump and Biden.
“People do expect more of their leaders. Another is the apparent glorification of violence, revelling in the equivalent of a political Fight Club.”
Biden made similar statements leading up to the 2016 election.
At a Hillary Clinton campaign stop in Wilkes-Barre, Penn., Biden said he would “take Trump behind the gym.” He said the things Trump said in a 2005 Access Hollywood tape about kissing women without their consent or “grabbing them by the p---y” should be considered assault.
“What he said he did and does is the textbook definition of sexual assault,” Biden said at the campaign stop.
“Think about this, it’s more than wrong, he said because I’m famous, because I’m a star, because I’m a billionaire I can do things other people can’t. What a disgusting assertion for anyone to make.”
If Biden takes on Trump in 2020 the race is unlikely to include physical combat.
THIS ALL FEELS LIKE A PREVIEW OF A BIDEN AND TRUMP FACEOFF COME 2020.