Trump Says ‘Sleepy’ Biden an Easier Foe Than ‘Ruthless’ Clinton

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he’d prefers running against “sleepy” Joe Biden in 2020 compared with Hillary Clinton.

“I would actually rather run against Biden,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview conducted Friday and broadcast Sunday. “I actually think that Hillary Clinton was a great candidate. She was very smart. She was very tough,” he said. He called the former first lady and secretary of State “ruthless and vicious.”

“He’s sleepy,” he said, referring to the former vice president. “She was not sleepy.”

The interview was conducted days after Trump kicked off his 2020 re-election campaign on Tuesday night in Orlando in a speech that mentioned Clinton by name several times before pivoting to Biden, front-runner for the 2020 Democratic nomination.

Some have criticized Trump for having no new central campaign message to unveil, beyond “Keep America Great,” an update of his “Make America Great Again” 2016 slogan.

Asked during the interview if he had a re-election policy or proposal to unveil -- as he did on each season as host of the NBC reality show “The Apprentice” -- the president said “health care is going to be very important for me.”

“I got rid of the worst part of Obamacare, which was the individual mandate,” he said. “We’re going to come up with great health care if we win the House, the Senate and the presidency.”

Asked if he was prepared to lose in 2020, Trump said, “No. Probably not. Probably not.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Hailey Waller in New York at hwaller@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann, Ros Krasny

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.