Trump says 'weak' Biden came off the 'trash heap' as former vice president mulls 2020 bid

Former Vice President Joe Biden in May 2017. Former Vice President Joe Biden in May 2017. Photo: David Paul Morris, Bloomberg Photo: David Paul Morris, Bloomberg Image 1 of / 17 Caption Close Trump says 'weak' Biden came off the 'trash heap' as former vice president mulls 2020 bid 1 / 17 Back to Gallery

President Donald Trump called former Vice President Joe Biden a "weak" man when asked Saturday night about a growing list of Democrats seeking to topple him in 2020.

Trump - who prizes strength, attacks his enemies as weak and has often resorted to name calling - resurrected previous insults against Biden as the former U.S. senator from Delaware mulls his third presidential bid. He mocked Biden's two unsuccessful attempts for the White House and said former President Barack Obama "took him off the trash heap" when he tapped Biden to be his vice president.

"He's weak. So we'll see what happens with him ... Whoever it is, I think we're going to do just fine," Trump told Fox News's Jeanine Pirro.

Biden's spokesman declined to comment.

Trump made similar comments about Biden during an interview with CBS News in July, when he said that running against the former vice president would be a "dream."

Biden, 76, unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1988 and 2008. He considered running again in 2016 but decided against it, saying his family was still recovering from the death of his son Beau from brain cancer. In December, he said he's "the most qualified person in the country" to be president and that he would make a decision this month on whether he would run.

Biden is part of a large crowd of Democrats who are testing the waters of a presidential bid. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, and former HUD Secretary Julián Castro have formally jumped into the 2020 presidential campaign.

Biden has previously taken a stab at Trump.

During a December interview with author and television personality Bruce Feiler, Biden acknowledged his reputation as a "gaffe machine" - a "wonderful" quality "compared to a guy who can't tell the truth."

Biden unleashed some of his fiercest criticisms yet of Trump during a speech in Kentucky in October, when he said the president "has debased" American values and "ceded global leadership to tyrants and thugs."

"The example we're showing the rest of the world is sad. Our values are being shredded. Our democracy's under assault. A president has put his own interest before those of our ideals," Biden said.

In an interview with the Palm Beach Post, Frank Biden said his older brother has the best chance at winning over disaffected Democrats whom the party lost to Trump in 2016. He said some relatives voted for Trump because they "felt slighted" by Hillary Clinton and her campaign.

"The decision the party has to make is almost an existential one ... Are we going to go with someone that everyone implicitly trusts, has confidence in? And no one doubts Joe's ability to do the job," Frank Biden said. "Who do you think that the disaffected Republicans and the disaffected Democrats - that we need to win over to win Pennsylvania, to win Michigan, to win Wisconsin, to win Ohio, to win Florida - as a strictly Machiavellian question, who is best positioned to win those folks back?"

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The Washington Post's John Wagner contributed to this article.