A day after his 2020 launch, Trump is acting like Joe Biden is his real competition for the presidency
- Hours after Joe Biden formally launched his bid for the presidency on Thursday, Trump on Twitter described him as "sleepy", and questioned the former vice president's intelligence.
- However the president's attacks reportedly mask concern that Biden to could defeat him in 2020.
- Biden visited Pennsylvania on Thursday, a crucial swing state which Trump has to hold if he is to retain the presidency.
- A poll Wednesday found Biden with an 8-point lead over Trump in a head-to-head contest.
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Hours after Joe Biden formally launched his bid for the presidency on Thursday, President Trump greeted the news in characteristic fashion - with a series of personal insults about the former vice president.
"Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign," Trump tweeted.
"It will be nasty - you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!"
In Biden's video announcing his candidacy, he framed the prospect of four more years of a Trump presidency as a threat to US democracy, seizing on images of white nationalists marching in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017, to whom Trump offered some support.
Trump resumed his attacks later in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity, and said he had been urged to smear Biden with another word that rhymes with "sleepy" (an allusion to the "creepy Joe Biden" memes in which he is pictured allegedly touching women inappropriately).
Trump said he ultimately decided the strategy was "too nasty," continuing the unwelcome optics of seeming to sympathize with Biden over a scandal to do with the treatment of women.
The president's attacks, though, reportedly mask an underlying fear that Biden is the Democrat best-placed to defeat him in 2020.
A Republican strategist said to have direct knowledge of events in the White House told Politico on Thursday that the president had been discussed the threat Biden posed for months.
"How are we gonna beat Biden?" the president would reportedly ask, and when reassured by aides that Biden wouldn't defeat more progressive rivals in the Democratic primaries, Trump asked "But what if he does?"
The source of Trump's concern is the Democrat's strong showing in the Rust Belt swing states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania - which Trump took from the Democrats in 2016 after promising a renewal of blue collar manufacturing jobs.
A source of particular concern is Pennsylvania, which, despite his long stint as a US Senator for Delaware, is Biden's home state.
A Republican who has attended meetings with Trump told CNN Thursday that Trump frequently asks about Biden's strength there.
Biden visited Pennsylvania on the first day of his presidential campaign, heading to a fundraiser held by David L. Cohen, executive senior vice president of Comcast. He will make his first major stump speech as a presidential candidate on Monday in Pittsburgh.
The president, in an apparent bid to shore up his support in the state, earlier retweeted a message by Republican Party Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel highlighting the administration's economic record.
McDaniel said: "Biden chose Pennsylvania to launch his campaign - a state where the unemployment rate just dropped to the lowest level *ever recorded.*"
And national polls bear out the president's concern, with a Politico/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday showing Biden with an eight point lead over Trump in a head-to-head contest.
Analysts, though, are sceptical about whether 76-year-old Biden can command the support of the party's young, progressive, and energized base, which he will likely need to win the Democratic nomination.
He continues to be face questions about whether he is out of step with the values of the party.
One damaging example was Anita Hill telling the New York Times on Thursday that she does not accept Biden's apology for his handling of 1991 Senate hearings in which she accused Justice Clarence Thomas of sexual harassment.
Biden on Thursday refused to be drawn into exchanging insults with the president Thursday, remarking to reporters in Delaware when told of Trump's tweet, "everybody knows Donald Trump."