Donald Trump threw a tirade of jabs at President Joe Biden in a speech at a downtown hotel in Manchester, New Hampshire, last night.
Speaking publicly for the first time since President Biden announced his bid for re-election, Trump repurposed an old favourite nickname with the coining of "crooked Joe Biden" - despite Trump himself being the subject of two court cases yesterday.
Repeating a jibe previously aimed at the Democrat in the last election, the Republican joked: “He doesn’t know he’s alive!”
Trump previously used the taunt at a New Hampshire rally in August 2020 saying “guy doesn’t know he’s alive”, later reiterating the line to FOX News in September 2020.
Donald Trump has repurposed the jibe crooked for Biden
PA
More recently, Trump posted on Trust Social on 18 March 2023: “WE ARE A NATION IN STEEP DECLINE, BEING LED INTO WORLD WAR III BY A CROOKED POLITICIAN WHO DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HE'S ALIVE.”
At the rally, Trump also said: “We are a nation in serious decline, a nation that has lost its way. We are led by a hopeless person, but we will win in 2024 and make America great again. We can do it. It’s not too late.”
He added: "It's almost inconceivable that Biden would have even thought of running for re-election. He's destroyed our country."
Much to the delight of the New Hampshire crowd, Trump announced he was retiring the “crooked” from his moniker “crooked Hillary” only to repurpose the phrase for “crooked Joe Biden”.
A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, Ammar Moussa, later retorted: “Donald Trump may come up with a lot of nicknames for President Biden but we have a better one: winner."
While Trump spoke in New Hampshire, his former vice president, Mike Pence, testified before a federal grand jury investigating efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the 2020 election.
At the same time, yesterday writer E. Jean Carroll testified for a second day in a civil rape case against Trump over a historic encounter in the 1990s, an allegation Trump denies.
Having thrown his hat in the ring early, Trump is considered a clear front-runner for the GOP nomination, with uncertainty over whether rival Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ will run.
President Biden hoping to wave in another four years
PA
Sitting on a sizeable polling lead, Trump has pondered aloud the prospect of skipping primary debates in the GOP nomination process.
The New Hampshire rally took place two days after Biden launched his own long-alluded to reelection campaign with a slick campaign video that took aim at Trump and warned of “MAGA” extremists working to erode freedoms including voting and abortion rights.
Trump initially responded to the video with a statement: "You could take the five worst presidents in American history, and put them together, and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our Nation in just a few short years. Not even close."
Trump lost the swing state of New Hampshire in the 2016 and 2020 general elections, but it was the first state that Trump won in the 2016 Republican presidential primary contest, setting him on a path of GOP dominance.