Donald Trump has long had a penchant for nicknaming his political adversaries, coining the phrases Sleepy Joe, Crooked Hillary, and Ron DeSanctimonious. But one Trump moniker for President Joe Biden allegedly went beyond the former president’s typical antagonism.
The Republican presidential nominee, who has repeatedly referred to Biden as Sleepy Joe, Slow Joe, and Crooked Joe, wanted to add “Retarded Joe Biden” to his nickname arsenal, a new report by The Atlantic claims.
“The guy’s a retard. He’s retarded. I think that’s what I’ll start calling him,” Trump reportedly said aboard his campaign plane, in late June, following the president’s disastrous debate performance.
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Campaign staffers allegedly begged the former president to not to say the r-word publicly, warning him that it risked alienating moderate voters who had swung to the political right. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, dismissed the claim as “materially false” and said the nickname “was never discussed.”
While the former president never used the offensive nickname in public, multiple accounts describe him using the r-word recently and in the past to diss his personal and political opponents.
In early 2020, Vanity Fair reported that Trump, in response to poor polling numbers in the election, asked how he could be losing to a “mental retard,” referring to Biden. As for Kamala Harris, Trump allegedly described the Democratic presidential nominee by using the r-word slur during a late September dinner with Republican donors.
The former president’s attacks on Harris, her mental abilities, and intelligence are par for the course at his campaign rallies. Since her ascent to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket, he has tried to brand her as “mentally impaired” and “mentally disabled.”
And, as Election Day approaches, Trump’s controversial rhetoric has only continued, with him fantasizing about having Liz Cheney shot, hosting a “hate rally” at Madison Square Garden, and simulating oral sex on a microphone during a Milwaukee rally.
