Former Vice President Joe Biden (D) has been under attack from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and those barbs have only intensified as the primary elections draw closer.
But this week, Biden authored an editorial in the Des Moines Register that pushed back on those criticisms. The former vice president wrote, “Some of my opponents in the Democratic primary will tell you that Donald Trump isn’t the issue — they’ll say that our focus should be on what the country will look like after he leaves office. With all due respect, they are looking past the crisis staring us in the face: What happens if he wins again?”
His op-ed largely took issue with President Donald Trump, not Sanders. Biden wrote that the president “fans the flames of hate groups at home. He embraces murderous dictators abroad. He rips children from their mothers’ arms at our border. He pressures foreign nations to interfere in our elections.”
He continued, “Every day, his endless spigot of unhinged lies, thoughtless cruelties, and petty complaints embarrasses his office and degrades our national character.”
We are so much better than who Donald Trump thinks we are. We don’t have to give in to his dark, petty, angry vision of America. We can choose to be the more perfect union we have always aspired to be — and restore the soul of this nation. https://t.co/nkD23GxirG
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 9, 2020
As tensions escalated with Iran, Sanders appeared on CNN to attack Biden, saying, “Joe Biden voted, and helped lead the effort for the war in Iraq […] Joe Biden voted for the disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA.”
But Biden has mostly stayed silent on Bernie, even as Sanders has delivered blistering critiques, including telling The Washington Post last week that Biden “brings into this campaign a record which is so weak that it just cannot create the kind of excitement and energy that is going to be needed to defeat Donald Trump.”
Biden didn’t take the bait on that attack, saying simply, “I don’t respond to Bernie.”
“I don’t respond to Bernie,” Joe Biden says when asked about @BernieSanders hitting the ex-VP on Iraq today. You’re not going to get me into a fight with Bernie. Bernie’s got enough baggage,” Biden says, in a dig about Sanders’ comments to WaPo yesterday.
— Natasha Korecki (@natashakorecki) January 3, 2020
While Biden leads the polling in the primary race, he’s also consistently been the candidate who fares the best against Trump in head-to-head polling.