Former Vice President Joe Biden is trying to salvage his 2020 presidential campaign in the South Carolina Democratic primary after disappointing finishes in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada.

However, if he's trying to convince people of his good judgment, he didn't help himself by taking on the Palmetto State's former governor, Nikki Haley.

Jamie Lovegrove, political reporter for The Post and Courier in Charleston, tweeted Wednesday that Biden questioned Haley's intelligence during an event in South Carolina while discussing the expansion of Medicaid.

"In Georgetown, he appears to start saying she 'didn’t have the brains' before stopping himself and changing it to 'foresight' because he wants to 'be polite,'" Lovegrove said.

Biden has started criticizing @NikkiHaley more directly in South Carolina recently for declining to expand Medicaid here. In Georgetown, he appears to start saying she “didn’t have the brains” before stopping himself and changing it to “foresight” because he wants to “be polite” pic.twitter.com/xjT3Y2RL4H — Jamie Lovegrove (@jslovegrove) February 26, 2020

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Haley, though, wasted no time in punching back.

The former U.N. ambassador fired off a tweet that said, "Hold up Joe. I will put my brain up against yours anytime. Bring it. #GodBlessJoe"

Hold up Joe. I will put my brain up against yours anytime. Bring it. #GodBlessJoe https://t.co/x5bfrVCrCa — Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 26, 2020

Many observers thought it was a knockout.

😂😂😂😂 Glad you have a sense of humor Ambassador! When some people get that age, all their filters stop working. #GodBlessJoe — I Trust Trump‼️ 🇺🇸 💥Durham is coming!!💥 (@TrumpsMyPOTUS45) February 27, 2020

Owned! You go girl. — 🇺🇸 Diane Rapoport - Text TRUMP to 88022 (@DianeRap) February 27, 2020

Go get’em Nikki! Counter punch hard & fast! — Michael Hengel (@HengelMichael) February 27, 2020

Biden has had a number of high-profile gaffes during the 2020 campaign, including a claim this week that 150 million Americans have been killed by guns since 2007.

The former vice president also told a South Carolina audience that he is running for the Senate.

In January, he said there was a border between Bolivia and Venezuela, when in fact the two countries share no borders.

It should be noted that while Biden claimed he wanted to be polite, he has fired off vicious attacks a number of times.

During the 2012 presidential campaign, Biden told a crowd in Virginia that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, the GOP nominees for president and vice president that year, wanted to put African-Americans in chains.

Earlier this month, he snapped at a college student who questioned him at an event in New Hampshire, calling her "a lying, dog-faced pony soldier."

After the dust-up with Biden, Haley took part in this year's Conservative Political Action Conference, where she met with a number of attendees.

Haley was governor of South Carolina from 2011 to 2017, when President Donald Trump appointed to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations. She held that position until the end of 2018.

In January of this year, she was among those defending the strike that took out Iranian Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani.

Haley, the first Sikh-American governor in the United States, was the subject of speculation as a possible replacement for Mike Pence on the 2020 ticket and is seen as a possible contender for the presidency in 2024.

If she runs in four years, will Haley be taking on incumbent President Joe Biden?

To be polite, don't count on it.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.