WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and billionaire Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer traded insults on social media Wednesday in an exchange that few will mistake for the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

"Steyer is a major loser. Just doesn't get it," Trump posted in response to a 2-day-old tweet from Fox News anchor Brett Baier.

Baier's tweet in turn linked to a video post from the Daily Caller that showed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., appearing to push away Steyer away as he tried to tell Sanders something at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day rally in Columbia, South Carolina.

"This is second time with Bernie!" Trump said. The president did not elaborate on the other time he was referring to, but Sanders was also brusque when Steyer approached him after the Jan. 14 debate in Des Moines.

"Donald, you're just jealous nobody wants to say hi to you," Steyer replied. "Impeachment is forever bye. That has to hurt."

It was not the first time Trump took to Twitter to taunt Steyer, who ran national ads calling for the president's impeachment before he entered the race. In two tweets earlier this year, Trump called Steyer a "weirdo" who didn't "have the 'guts' or money to run for President."

In 2018, Trump called Steyer "wacky" and said he "comes off as a crazed & stumbling lunatic." In 2017, he said Steyer was "totally unhinged."

In turn, Steyer has previously used his Twitter account to call Trump a "traitor and a criminal." He has also called him "dangerous" and a "failed businessman," as well as "a fraud and a failure."

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In recent weeks, Trump has used his Twitter platform to promote a conspiracy theory that establishment Democrats were using the impeachment trial as a way to hurt Sanders in the race for the presidential nomination. According to that theory, the timing of the trial was intended to pull Sanders off the campaign trail to serve as a juror in the Senate, while former vice president Joe Biden is free to continue to reach out to voters.

"They are rigging the election again against Bernie Sanders, just like last time, only even more obviously. They are bringing him out of so important Iowa in order that, as a Senator, he sit through the Impeachment Hoax Trial," Trump tweeted on Jan. 17.

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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi repeatedly said she delayed sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate because she was concerned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., would not guarantee what she considered a "fair" trial.

Despite the lack of evidence, Trump's supporters also promoted the conspiracy theory, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif.

"This is the dirty little secret that nobody is talking about, why the speaker held these papers," McCarthy told Fox News anchor Maria Bartiromo in a Jan. 12 interview. "The Iowa caucus is on Feb. 3. Bernie Sanders is in first place. And what this does is, this benefits Joe Biden. This harms Sen. Sanders, who is in first place and could become their nominee, because he will be stuck in a chair."

"Impeachment has nothing to do with politics or the presidential race. As usual, the Minority Leader has no idea what he’s talking about," Pelosi's deputy chief of staff, Drew Hammill, tweeted in response to McCarthy's claim.

In 2016, Trump also tried to tap into the anger of Sanders' voters who felt the Democratic National Committee and superdelegates rigged the system in former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's favor. And he appears to again be trying to pull away disgruntled Sanders voters should the self-described democratic socialist lose the primary race a second time.

"They are taking the nomination away from Bernie for a second time. Rigged!" Trump tweeted Wednesday.

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