President Trump used a rally-like meet up with New York City cops Friday to road-test his favored nicknamed for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden, saying foreign leaders like Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping aren’t “sleepy” so the U.S. leader cannot be, either.
“Who likes slow Joe? Who likes Sleepy Joe?” Mr. Trump said to cheers from the New York Police Department Benevolent Association at his golf property in Bedminster, New Jersey. “That’s what I thought!” Mr. Trump responded.
Mr. Trump said Mr. Putin, Mr. Xi and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are never labeled “sleepy” or “slow.”
“We can’t have slow, sleepy people dealing with them, either,” he said. “Because we were doing very well against all of them, all of them.”
Mr. Trump has boasted about sanctions and other pressure-tactics on Russia, his phase-one trade deal with China and his ability to avoid long-range missile attacks or an outright war with North Korea.
His critics, however, point to the president’s recurring inability to say anything bad about Mr. Putin — despite evidence Russia meddled in U.S. elections — his early support for Mr. Xi’s response to the coronavirus that began in Wuhan, China, and his friendly summits with Mr. Kim, which did not result in the denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
