Having racked up a formidable delegate lead, former Vice President Joe Biden is all but certain to win the Democratic Party ‘s presidential nomination. Biden, who collapsed in the first three states, revived his campaign with a resounding victory in South Carolina and has since been winning delegates in contests across the country.
President Donald Trump ‘s campaign is seemingly already treating Biden as the Republican Party’s general election opponent. According to a new report from The Washington Examiner , the Trump 2020 campaign is now casting doubt on his mental faculties.
During a virtual town hall on Wednesday, Biden told supporters that he became a “professor” after leaving the United States Senate. As the publication notes, this assertion has long been disputed by students and local press, who claim that he has only done “limited work” at the University of Pennsylvania– not after he left the Senate, but in 2017, after serving eight years as vice president.
In an email, pointing to Biden’s previous “gaffes,” Trump spokeswoman Abigail Marone questioned his mental faculties.
“Sadly, this isn’t the first time Biden blacked out the eight years of the Obama presidency. In September, he referred to George W. Bush as ‘the last president,’” she wrote.
“He’s not playing with a full deck, folks.”
Trump has also questioned Biden’s mental fitness. Earlier this week, he shared a video montage of the former vice president — who he has nicknamed “Sleepy Joe” — awkwardly pausing and stumbling over his words during media interviews.
The Democrat’s Best & Finest! https://t.co/xAmbP1Nnm0
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2020
On the campaign trail, Biden has made a number of gaffes . For instance, he said he was vice president during the Parkland shooting — which occurred two years after he left office — confused New Hampshire for Vermont, referred to his campaign website as “Joe 30330,” and suggested that the shootings in Ohio and El Paso, Texas, took place in Michigan and Houston.
Apparently, the gaffes have led some to claim that Biden is experiencing cognitive decline. The claims did not originate in right-leaning circles, however. As The Intercept ‘s Glenn Greenwald pointed out in a recent column, prominent Democratic Party figures have long speculated that the former vice president is declining.
Former presidential candidates Cory Booker, Tim Ryan, and Julian Castro have all questioned Biden’s mental fitness. Notably, during one of the Democratic presidential debates, Castro accused Biden of forgetting what he said a moment earlier. A number of Democratic-leaning pundits have suggested the same, according to Greenwald, who wrote that “it’s clear where these valid concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline originated: from within Biden’s own partisan establishment circles.”