President Joe Biden’s team have mocked Donald Trump’s meandering speech announcing a new presidential run as “boring”.
The former president and reality TV star took the stage at his Florida residence of Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday night to announce that he would be seeking a second term in the White House in 2024.
While he spoke, Mr Biden’s deputy press secretary Andrew Bates tweeted: “Bored? A lot of people are. Read about [Mr Biden]’s high-energy record!”
That last remark was a reference to Mr Trump’s unusually relaxed and low-key delivery, which many viewers described with the Trumpian phrase “low-energy”.
Mr Trump had been widely expected to announce a second presidential run just before this month’s midterm elections, but stayed his hand – reportedly due to the intervention of Republican allies who feared he would boost Democratic turnout.
Despite the GOP’s failure to produce a historic “red wave”, Mr Trump went ahead anyway, declaring that Mr Biden had managed to turn an America on the brink of a “golden age” into a “failing nation” in less than two years.
During the speech on Tuesday night, Mr Biden tweeted his own riposte, declaring: “Donald Trump failed America.”
He attached a video juxtaposing interviews with Mr Trump against news footage, accusing him of “rigging the economy for the rich”, seeking to deprive Americans of health insurance, attacking abortion rights, and “inciting a violent mob” in January 2021.
In contrast to the wall-to-wall live coverage that Mr Trump enjoyed during his 2016 run, both CNN and then Fox News cut away from his speech midway through on Tuesday night. MSNBC did not carry the speech at all.
Allies of Mr Biden texted RealClearNews reporter Philip Melanchthon Wegmann claiming that Mr Trump seemed “bored of his own speech” and that his attacks felt “watered down”, while one senior GOP official texted a yawning emoji.
Mr Trump said: "Two years ago when I left office, the United States stood ready for its golden age. Our nation was at the pinnacle of power, prosperity and prestige, towering above all rivals, vanquishing all enemies, and striding into the future.
"Nut now we are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. For millions of Americans, the past two years under Joe Biden has been a time of pain, hardship, anxiety and despair.
“My fellow Americans, we will join together and reverse the staggering American decline – and it is staggering – and we will again restore the spirit of our nation.”
