Trump and allies take aim at Biden -- and his family -- as their top Democratic target [View all]

By Matt Viser and Ashley Parker May 24 at 6:00 AM

He started out with “1 percent Joe.” Then he moved on to “Creepy Joe.” And finally he settled on “Sleepy Joe” — or sometimes, when feeling punchy, “Sleepy Creepy Joe.”

By the time President Trump road-tested his fourth nickname for Joe Biden, it was clear that he and his allies are treating the former vice president as their chief Democratic rival — with Trump turning his considerable talent for political destruction on both Biden and his family.

Trump’s allies have mocked Biden’s hugging of his own wife, while Trump accused him of deserting Pennsylvania because his father moved the family to neighboring Delaware when Biden was 10. Some Trump surrogates are also mounting attacks on his son, Hunter Biden, for his foreign business entanglements and privately — but eagerly — sharing reports of his alleged substance abuse.

More broadly, the Trump campaign and its supporters have begun attacking Joe Biden in much the same way they went after Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016 — casting the former senator and vice president as a lifelong politician who has been part of a broken political system and whose family has been personally enriched by it.

“There’s nothing quite like watching Joe Biden, who’s been in D.C. for about 60 years, say government has failed you,” Donald Trump Jr. said at a rally for his father in Pennsylvania Monday night. “I go, ‘Joe, in all fairness this is your life’s work. It is a failure, I agree with you.’ ”

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-and-allies-take-aim-at-biden--and-his-family--as-their-top-democratic-target/2019/05/23/f05e0878-7c9b-11e9-8bb7-0fc796cf2ec0_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.23a0eb755832