At the first presidential debate in Cleveland Tuesday, President Trump hit back after Joe Biden said that he needed to become “a lot smarter” or more people would die from COVID-19.
“Did you use the word ‘smart?’ So you said you went to Delaware State, but you forgot the name of your college. You didn’t go to Delaware State. You graduated either the lowest or almost the lowest in your class,” Trump responded. “Don’t ever use the word ‘smart’ with me. Don’t ever use that word. There’s nothing smart about you, Joe.”
Trump and Biden sparred over each other’s COVID-19 plans, with Biden invoking the taped interviews Trump participated in with Bob Woodward, in which he told the veteran journalist that he wanted to “play [the coronavirus] down.”
At a campaign stop in South Carolina last October, Biden said he started his college career at Delaware State University, a historically black college. A spokesman for the university denied that Biden was ever a student, but the college awarded the then-senator an “honorary doctoral degree” in the early 2000s.
Biden earned his undergraduate degree at the University of Delaware and was ranked near the bottom of his class at Syracuse University, placing 79th out of 87 in his second year.
