By Stephen M. Lepore For Dailymail.Com
05:46 10 Jul 2024, updated 06:04 10 Jul 2024
Joe Biden responded to Donald Trump’s challenge to debate again and a game of golf that would be worth $1 million.
Trump issued the ultimatum to his election rival at a rally in Doral, Florida on Tuesday night – proposing an event he said would be bigger than the Ryder Cup or the Masters.
‘I’m also officially challenging Crooked Joe to an 18-hole golf match right here. On Doral’s Blue Monster considered one of the greatest tournament golf courses anywhere in the world,’ Trump said. ‘It will be among the most-watched sporting events in history.’
Via a spokesperson, Biden put out an immediate response to the missive from Trump shortly after.
He refused to take him up on a debate – perhaps considering his disastrous performance last time around – but instead offered up a few challenges of his own.
‘We’d challenge Donald Trump to create jobs, but he lost 3 million,’ the statement read.
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‘We’d challenge Donald Trump to stand up to Putin, but he bent the knee to him.’
‘We’d challenge Donald Trump to follow the law, but he breaks it.’
‘We’d challenge Donald Trump to not destroy our country, but that’s all his Project 2025 aims to do.’
The statement finished: ‘Joe Biden doesn’t have time for Donald Trump’s weird antics – he’s busy leading America and defending the free world.’
The ex-president first said he wanted to debate Biden again – ‘next week’ – which would coincide with the Republican National Convention. Biden is due to debate Trump a second time already, but on September 10.
Then, Trump issued Biden to a challenge at his favorite sport after the two argued about it at the first debate.
‘I will even give Joe Biden 10 strokes aside, 10 strokes, that’s a lot. That means 20 strokes in case you don’t play golf,’ he continued.
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‘And if he wins I will give the charity of his choice – any charity that he wants – 10 million dollars,’ the ex-president added. ‘And I bet he doesn’t take the offer.’
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Both men are keen golfers and Trump used his hobby to push back on questions about how he would fare at the end of a second presidential term, when he would be 82 years old.
‘I just won two club championships — not even senior, two regular club championships,’ he boasted.
‘To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards.’
Biden took a swing back saying he would be happy to take on Trump in a ‘driving contest.’
‘I got my handicap, when I was vice president, down to a six,’ he said, before jabbing at Trump, who is frequently pictured on his own courses in a golf cart with a caddy never far away.
‘And by the way, I told you before, I’m happy to play golf if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?’
Trump scoffed at Biden’s handicap.
‘That’s the biggest lie—that he’s a six-handicap—of all,’ he said.
As if none of that were childish enough, when Trump added: ‘Let’s not act like children,’ Biden responded: ‘You are a child.’
Trump’s love of golf is well-known. He frequently played during his winter weekends at Mar-a-Lago in Florida or summer breaks to Bedminster, his course in New Jersey.
Some of his most animated appearances at the White House included visits by golfing great Tiger Woods, and in 2018 he played at his West Palm Beach course with legend Jack Nicklaus.
Biden plays less frequently, but is a member at the Fieldstone Golf Club near his Delaware home.