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       President Joe Biden has reacted to Donald Trump’s angry Christmas Truth Social post in which the former president expressed a desire that his opponents “rot in hell”.

       In the midst of ostensibly wishing a Merry Christmas to all, the former president ranted about “Crooked Joe Biden”, “Deranged Jack Smith”, “World leaders, both good and bad”, and the “sick…THUGS” within the country who are looking “destroy our once great USA”.

       He closed out the social media post shortly after lunch on 25 December with a festive, all-caps: “MAY THEY ROT IN HELL. AGAIN, MERRY CHRISTMAS!”

       In response to reporting on the post, President Biden — a practicing Catholic and regular church-goer — took the opportunity to highlight the deep contrasts in character between him and his expected 2024 opponent.

       He tweeted: “There’s an expression they say in church sometimes: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you.”

       Judging by social media presence, it has been a wild and bitter holiday season for Mr Trump.

       In other posts over the past couple of days, former president Trump also told special counsel Jack Smith to “go to hell”, ranted about the movie Home Alone 2, and lashed out at ABC News anchor and former White House adviser George Stephanopoulos over media coverage of the Biden classified documents for which it is believed he will not face charges — unlike himself.

       Late on Wednesday, Mr Biden, currently with his family on the Caribbean island of St Croix to celebrate the new year, had a similarly pithy response to remarks by Mr Trump’s rival for the Republican Party nomination, Nikki Haley.

       The former governor of South Carolina and former UN ambassador has been widely criticised for not saying slavery was the reason for the American Civil War in response to a question from a member of the audience at a campaign event.

       Reacting to his own campaign’s tweet regarding Ms Haley’s reply to the question in which she spoke about the role of government, capitalism and freedom of speech, the president simply tweeted: “It was about slavery.”

       The GOP candidate has since been trying to walk back her response and claims the question came from a Democratic Party plant in the crowd at the event at which she was speaking in Berlin, New Hampshire.

       This is not the first time Ms Haley has run into trouble over Civil War history.

       More about Donald Trump Joe Biden Nikki Haley American Civil War Jack Smith

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       1/ 1Biden reacts to Trump’s ‘rot in hell’ Christmas message

       Biden reacts to Trump’s ‘rot in hell’ Christmas message

       President Joe Biden delivers his keynote speech at Ulster University in Belfast on 4 December 2023

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