Former President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will scrap the “Crooked Hillary” nickname and apply the epithet to President Biden instead — an effort to recapture the zeitgeist of his successful 2016 campaign.
“I will be retiring the name ‘Crooked’ from Hillary Clinton,” Trump, 76, said at a New Hampshire rally. “I’m gonna give her a new name. I don’t know like maybe ‘Lovely Hillary’ or ‘Beautiful Hillary,’ but I’m going to retire the name ‘Crooked’ so that we can use the name for Joe Biden — because he’ll be known from now on as ‘Crooked Joe’ Biden.”
Trump told the Manchester crowd that Biden, 80, “cares only about enriching his own family” and “you wonder why he does nothing about China — why he doesn’t do what he’s supposed to be doing? Because he got millions of dollars from China.”
Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa rejected the new nickname, arguing that Trump had his own “shady” foreign business dealings.
“Donald Trump and his family used his presidency to rake in billions — with a B — from shady deals with foreign countries like China and Saudi Arabia,” Moussa said. “Donald Trump may come up with a lot of nicknames for President Biden, but we have a better one: winner.”
Trump lost to Biden in 2020 after bestowing the mocking nickname “Sleepy Joe” on his rival.
This election cycle, Trump has put greater creativity into insulting his top potential GOP rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — calling him “DeSanctimonious” or “DeSanctus” while reportedly toying with “Tiny D” and “Meatball Ron.”
Trump also attacked another potential Republican rival, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, on Thursday, saying: “Sloppy Chris Christie… has got a big mouth, that’s all he’s got.”
Trump in 2016 sank a series of rivals with ridicule — tearing into “Lyin’ Ted” Cruz and “Little Marco” Rubio as the Republican senators challenged him for the GOP nomination, before branding general-election foe Clinton as “Crooked.”
“You would think that Hillary would be very happy today,” Trump said Thursday.
“I think she’ll be — she’s out there someplace, celebrating because there’s never been anyone in the history of American politics so crooked or dishonest as Joe Biden. And the press absolutely refuses to report it … because frankly, they’re just as crooked as he is.”
