Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), an ally of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, hit back at President Trump on Sunday after the president criticized Coons on Twitter while misspelling his name.
“Mr. President, only my closest friends call me Chrisie,” Coons tweeted in response to Trump’s tweet.
Coons also tweeted from a separate account, “Wow… my first Trump slander… makes a boy feel all grown up… even if I am a puppet not a real boy.”
The senator’s remark came in response to a tweet from Trump earlier in the day in which the president wrote that “Senator Chrisie Coons” is a “weak and pathetic Schumer puppet.”
Coons, a close friend of Biden’s who replaced him in the Senate when Biden became vice president, gave a speech on behalf of Biden during last week’s Democratic National Convention.
The president also hit “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace, a frequent target of the president, for not questioning Coons during his interview Sunday about “why Biden fought” him on his decision to ban travel from China at the end of January.
“Chris Wallace ‘forgot’ to ask a very weak and pathetic Schumer puppet, Senator Chrisie Coons, why Biden fought me when I put an extremely early BAN on people coming into our Country from heavily infected China. Biden later admitted I was right! But why no question?” Trump tweeted.
Trump has repeatedly praised his decision to ban travel from China, where the first outbreak of the coronavirus was reported, as critics have attacked his response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The president’s order did not entirely limit travelers from China, though. Nearly 40,000 people arrived in the U.S. on direct flights from China in the two months after Trump announced the restrictions, The New York Times reported in April.
Biden’s campaign manager, months after Trump announced restrictions on travel from China, told CNN that Biden supports travel bans “that are guided by medical experts, advocated by public health officials, and backed by a full strategy.”
“Science supported this ban, therefore he did too,” she added.
The Biden campaign, however, has denied writing Trump “a letter of apology” regarding his comments on the travel ban as Trump has claimed on at least two occasions. Trump also accused Biden of calling the ban “xenophobic,” but Biden never explicitly called Trump’s ban on travel from China “xenophobic.”