Student who Biden called 'lying, dog-faced pony solider' says 'bullying' shouldn't be dismissed as a joke

The woman who Joe Biden called a "lying, dog-faced pony soldier" says it's "insulting" to dismiss his comments as a joke, after he apparently dismissed her question about his poor performance in the Iowa caucus and how that translates to winning a general election.

Madison Moore, an economics student at Georgia's Mercer University, said the Democratic presidential candidate's inability to answer her question without "bullying or intimidating" underlines the point she was trying to make.

Ms Moore attended a campaign event during a student trip to New Hampshire, where the former vice president is campaigning ahead of the state's primary election to determine the Democrat nominee in the 2020 presidential election. She told Georgia's The Telegraph newspaper that she didn't plan to ask a question that would send the media into a tailspin.

"It was kind of humiliating to be called a liar on national TV by the former vice president", she said. "Instead of answering that question straight-forward, his immediate response was to attempt to invalidate me by exposing my inexperience."

His comment was an apparent joke that muddled several John Wayne film references, but it's one that has raised more questions about the former vice president's confrontational approach to voters on the campaign trail.

Mr Biden, once considered the frontrunner among Democratic candidates, likely finished in fourth place in Iowa, more than 10 percentage points behind Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg, as the Iowa Democratic Party untangles the results from its contentious polling.

At the event on Sunday, Ms Moore asked Mr Biden whether voters should believe the candidate can win the general election after his poor showing in Iowa.

He said: "It was a Democratic caucus. Ever been to a caucus?"

Ms Moore nodded yes.

He replied: "Sure you haven't. You're a lying, dog-faced pony soldier ... It was a little bit confusing in Iowa, number one."

His campaign said the line was from a film starring John Wayne in which a Native American chief calls him a "lying, dog-faced pony soldier".

He's used the line before. At an event supporting North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp in 2018, he used the phrase to describe her opponent Kevin Cramer. Mr Biden told the crowd: "As my brother who loves to use lines from movies, from John Wayne movies, there's a line in a movie, a John Wayne movie where an Indian chief turns to John Wayne and says, 'This is a lying, dog-faced pony soldier.'"

But Mr Biden's references to John Wayne's sentimental westerns — mashing together lines from 1949's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and 1953's Hondo, as well as Tyronne Power-starring Pony Soldier — don't include that quote.

Mr Biden has been criticised for his short fuse and impatience with difficult or confrontational questions on the campaign trail, even telling several potential voters to vote for someone else when pressed on his positions on immigration and climate change.

After Sunday's event, Mr Biden admitted Ms Moore's question was a fair one to ask and said Mr Buttigieg and Mr Sanders ran better campaigns in Iowa.