Trump Targets Biden Again as Democratic Race Hits Critical Stage

Traveling to one of the larger states holding a Democratic primary on Super Tuesday, Trump eagerly sought to undercut Biden at the very moment the former vice president revived his flagging campaign, taunting him for verbal gaffes and memory lapses and portraying him as an old man who even if elected would not govern but instead be committed to a retirement home.

As he has for weeks, the president likewise sought to encourage disenchantment on the left by promoting the notion that the Democratic Party establishment was trying to somehow illegitimately take away the nomination from Sanders. But Trump did not neglect the rest of the shrinking Democratic field, firing off barbs at the other candidates still in contention and even those who dropped out in the past 48 hours and threw their support to Biden.

“The Democrat party has gone crazy,” Trump said to a stadium full of cheering supporters.

The president wrapped up his rally not long before Biden’s own election-eve rally in Dallas got underway, and Trump seemed especially focused on the former vice president as a potential opponent in the fall.

He gleefully repeated recent misstatements by Biden, including his confusion over names and states, his statement that he was a candidate for the Senate, his reference to Tuesday’s primaries as “Super Thursday” and his head-spinning comment that 150 million Americans have been killed by guns since 2007.

“That means 50% of our country!” Trump said of the gun comment. “That’s a big story!”

“Sleepy Joe,” Trump continued, “he doesn’t even know where he is or what he’s doing or what office he’s running for. Honestly, I don’t think he knows what office he’s running for.”

If Biden won the presidency, Trump said, his staff would actually do the governing. “They’re going to put him into a home, and other people are going to be running the country,” the president said, “and they’re going to be super-left, radical crazies. And Joe’s going to be in a home and he’ll be watching television.”

A revival of Biden’s candidacy could scramble the election dynamics, giving Trump as much at stake on Tuesday as the Democrats. The president and his staff have been excited by the rise of Sanders, the Vermont senator who calls himself a democratic socialist, seeing the contrast as a favorable one in the November general election. But Trump made clear he would happily go after Biden if he emerges, too.

The rally in North Carolina was the fifth time in a row that the president has flown to a state holding a Democratic contest just before voting opened to force his way into the news cycle and try to shape the conversation. “We like to troll,” he boasted to the crowd in Charlotte.

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As is often the case, the Monday night rally was more of a Trumpian stream of consciousness than a recitation of the official text sitting on the teleprompter in front of him. He accused Democrats of “trying to politicize the coronavirus” even as he focused on the politics of coronavirus and asserted that “fringe globalists” wanted to keep the borders open to infected visitors.

Trump peppered his speech with a string of false or misleading statements. “Mexico’s paying for the wall,” he insisted, even though it is not. “Yes, they are. You’ll see. You’ll see. You understand.” He boasted of preserving protections for preexisting conditions even though his administration went to court to overturn the law guaranteeing such protections and supported legislation that would have weakened them.

As he sometimes does in these off-the-cuff riffs, he trailed off into comments that raised eyebrows. Twice at different points in his speech, he noted that he knew many parents who “don’t love their children very much.” At another point, he summoned Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., to the stage and gushed over him as if he were a younger brother.

“We all have your back,” declared Graham, who lost the Republican presidential nomination to Trump in 2016, when the senator called the eventual winner a “kook” who was unfit for office. “Mr. President, you’re going to kick their ass in November.”

“Oh, my Lindsey, my Lindsey,” Trump said.

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The president ridiculed the other Democratic candidates, calling former Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York “a disaster waiting to happen” and “a mess,” while again mocking his would-be challenger’s height. He recalled how Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, whom he once again mocked with a racial slur, “Pocahontas,” eviscerated Bloomberg at a recent debate. “She’s mean, she’s very mean,” he said. “She came after him and he started choking.”

Two candidates who just left the race likewise came under fire: former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota. Without any evidence, Trump contended that they made an illicit pact with Biden for their support.

“Sounds like they made a deal,” he said. “They both supported Sleepy Joe. You know why? They made a deal. You know why? Quid pro quo. That’s why.” Alluding to his own impeachment for using the power of his office to coerce campaign aid from Ukraine, Trump shouted: “Impeach them! They should be impeached! They should be impeached! Quid pro quo!”

He seemed particularly keen on fomenting discord within the Democratic Party by suggesting that the gathering support for Biden constituted a conspiracy to deny Sanders the nomination for a second election cycle in a row.

“It’s being rigged against Crazy Bernie,” Trump said. “Crazy Bernie’s going to go crazy, crazy.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .