The US president’s Twitter account has long been an accurate barometer of his mood, and a 56-tweetstorm on Wednesday suggested something had really irked him.
The source of Donald Trump’s ire? Firemen and Joe Biden.
This week the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) endorsed Biden as their pick to lead the Democrats in the 2020 Presidential Election, snubbing the president and his Republican party.
Trump’s reaction was to fly into a rage, firing off an angry tweet condemning the “dues sucking union” and highlighting the fact he doesn’t get paid for his job.
The thing to remember here is that the president’s base and the people he believes he appeals to the most are the workers of the US – such as the firemen.
The IAFF’s endorsement of Biden could bode extremely badly for Trump, a sign he won’t be able to garner support in the 2020 Presidential Election from the very people he thought he could rely on.
(As a side note, Trump’s image as a champion of the working class doesn’t actually hold up to scrutiny, with his signature tax bill for example, benefitting the already rich.)
The IAFF steered clear of the 2016 election, declining to endorse Democrat Hillary Clinton when she stood against Trump.
After the tweet above, Trump then retweeted a whopping 55 Twitter accounts, some claiming to be ex or current firefighters who supported him, and others attacking the IAFF’s decision.
Biden did not respond to Wednesday’s tweetstorm but a campaign spokeswoman for Biden noted Trump’s disquiet with sarcasm.
“No, he doesn’t seem concerned at all,” Kate Bedingfield wrote on Twitter, referring to Trump.
IAFF President Harold Schaitberger, later stuck by his decision, telling Time: “I’m just going to continue to communicate out what we do and not directly respond to unpleasant and unseemly and inaccurate tweets.”
Though Trump, a Republican, has boasted he could handily beat any Democratic opponent, some of Biden’s supporters believe the former vice president may be able to capture votes from the same Midwestern states that steered Trump to victory in 2016.
Biden announced his candidacy on Thursday with a direct attack on Trump, whom he called a “threat to this nation”, Reuters reports.
In his third bid for president, Biden has surged in the public opinion polls, with a CNN poll giving him a 15 percentage point lead in a field of 20 Democratic candidates.
Breaking with tradition, Trump has weighed in on a number of his would-be opponents, but reserved most of his barbs for Biden and US Senator Bernie Sanders, another leading candidate.