Can you tell a Joe Biden ‘gaffe’ from a Donald Trump ‘gaffe’? Don’t be so sure

Donald Trump


President Donald Trump (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Joe Biden is the clear front-runner for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

This worries some party activists -- and not because they don’t like or respect the former vice president. It’s because Biden tends to be, as he’s put it himself, a “gaffe machine.” His off-the-cuff style has led to a reputation for strange, sometimes unsettling, comments.

Biden has been offering up verbal slipups his entire career, but he’s now 76, which means that pundits and opponents are starting to assign his misstatements a new meaning. President Donald Trump has been among the first to jump on this dubious narrative. “Joe is not playing with a full deck,” Trump said earlier this month, adding: “something’s going wrong with him.”

Needless to say, the same argument has been made about the Republican president, who, at 73, is only three years younger than Biden. “President Trump consistently makes statements which question his moral authority or intellectual capability,” political-science professor Stephen Frantzich recently said. The president’s supporters, meanwhile, insist Trump’s words should be taken “seriously, but not literally.”

So if Trump and Biden end up facing off in the general election next year, which one’s verbal miscues will be most damaging? Will they matter at all?

Here’s another question: Can you tell a Biden “gaffe” from a Trump “gaffe”? Check out the very real quotes below and find out. The answers are listed at the end. (Note: these are actual verbal statements -- no tweets included.)

1. “I promise you, the president has a big stick. I promise you.”

2. “The working guy would elect me. He likes me. When I walk down the street, those cabbies start yelling out their windows."

Joe Biden


Joe Biden (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

3. “When was the last time anybody saw us beating, let’s say, China, in a trade deal? They kill us. I beat China all the time. All the time.”

4. “I never had an interest in being a mayor because that’s a real job. You have to produce.”

5. “If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there’s still a 30-percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

6. “I think if this country gets any kinder or gentler, it’s literally going to cease to exist.”

7. “And nobody knows what a community college is.”

8. “No one can say a negative thing about Dan Quayle. When he was vice president, he built that pool [at Number One Observatory Circle, the vice-president’s residence]. I just want you to know, he is my favorite vice president.”

9. “If you look at Saddam Hussein, he killed terrorists. I’m not saying he was an angel, but this guy killed terrorists.”

10. “I cannot believe that a Frenchman visiting Kiev went back home and told his colleagues he discovered something and didn’t say he discovered the most beautiful women in the world.”

11. “We have triumphed over evil like nobody has seen before.”

12. “I can tell you I’ve known eight presidents, three of them intimately.”

Donald Trump, Donald J. Trump


Donald Trump in 1984 (AP Photo/Marty Lederhandler)

13. “I’d rather be at home making love to my wife while my children are asleep.”

14. “My whole life has been heat. I like heat, in a certain way.”


16. “Prime Minister Abe of Japan gave me the most beautiful copy of a letter that he sent to the people who give out a thing called the Nobel Prize. ... He said, ‘I have nominated you respectfully on behalf of Japan. I am asking them to give you the Nobel Peace Prize.’ It’s the most beautiful five-page letter. Nobel Prize -- he sent it to them. You know why? Because he had rocket ships and he had missiles flying over Japan, and they had alarms going off. Now all of a sudden they feel good, they feel safe. I did that.”

17. “What I’m trying to say without boring you too long at breakfast, and you all look dull as hell, I might add. The dullest audience I have ever spoken to. Just sitting there, staring at me. Pretend you like me!”

18. “When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.”

19. “We will make America loving again.”

20. “I would tell members of my family, and I have, I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places right now. It’s not that it’s going to Mexico, it’s that you are in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes everywhere through the aircraft. That’s me.”

Joe Biden


Joe Biden in 1972 (AP Photo/Henry Griffin)

21. “So please get your asses out tomorrow and vote.”


23. “To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Maybe because I’m so good looking.”

24. “We have this notion that, somehow, if you’re poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”

25. “We got more money. We got more brains. We got better houses, apartments. We got nicer boats. We’re smarter than they are. And they say, ‘The elite.’ ”

26. “In [my state], the largest growth of population is Indian-Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”

27. “I will be phenomenal to the women. I mean, I want to help women.”

28. “Remember two things. Number one, I said, we’re going to be saying Christmas again. And, number two, I said I was going to give you a Christmas present.”

29. “We choose truth over facts!”

Answers: 1. Biden, 2. Trump, 3. Trump, 4. Biden, 5. Biden, 6. Trump, 7. Trump, 8. Biden, 9. Trump, 10. Biden, 11. Trump, 12. Biden, 13. Biden, 14. Trump, 15. Biden, 16. Trump, 17. Biden, 18. Trump, 19. Trump, 20. Biden, 21. Trump, 22. Trump, 23. Trump, 24. Biden, 25. Trump, 26. Biden, 27. Trump, 28. Trump, 29. Biden.

Sources: The Boston Globe, CNN, Politico, The Short List, Time.

-- Douglas Perry

