Oh, yes, perhaps you’ve heard, these two men leading the long parade of people trying to win the presidency in 2020 are both rather old — between them, 148 years of experience on the planet.

And of those 148 years, Donald Trump and Joe Biden have had careers on the public stage for nearly 90 them, a fact that might at first blush call into question the whole premise of their showdown Tuesday in Iowa, where they were in separate locales but spent the day talking very directly to and about each other: What can either man hope to tell voters about the other that they don’t already know?

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The answer, of course, is, of course. It made for an arresting few hours in the narrative wars on which modern presidential campaigns are waged — an exercise that seemed as much about psychological intimidation as political persuasion.

In both cases Biden and Trump with their mockery and insults seemed determined to get in each other’s heads as much as much as in voters’. And in both cases the message was a variant of, It’s getting late in the day for you, old man.

Biden said he welcomed being in Iowa on the same day as Trump as a “clarifying event.” His argument essentially was that Trump’s whole act has gotten old, exposing the president as a fraud not just as politician, but as a man.

“The truth is he’s scared,” Biden planned to say in Davenport. He was referring specifically to the effect Trump’s trade tariffs could have in Iowa and critical midwestern swing states but signaling his broader theme — that Biden frightens Trump because he alone has the standing to strip away the illusions behind his presidency.

Biden taunted Trump’s inability to deliver on his boasts to overturn Obamacare. (“Now he’s got his tail between his legs and barely mentions it.”) He said he lacks the dignity to represent America overseas. (“He gets up in the middle of the night to attack Bette Midler….a stunning display of childishness for the whole world to see.”) Above all, he said Trump is too self-absorbed to care about ordinary people. (“Donald, it’s not about you — it’s about America.”)

For his part, Trump didn’t stop at saying Biden’s message is old and tired. He said the Democrat’s physical and mental faculties are the same, dispensing almost entirely with euphemism or indirection.

“He’s a different guy,” Trump said of Biden. “He acts different than he used to. He looks different than he used to.”

“I’d rather run against, I think, Biden than anybody,” Trump told reporters. “I think he’s the weakest mentally and I think Joe is weak mentally. The others have much more energy.”

Subtle stuff, no?

When asked Tuesday about Trump’s comments regarding his stamina and age, Biden leaned into the reporter who queried him.

“Look at me and answer the question,” he said. When pressed to answer the question himself, Biden said: “It’s self-evident. You know it’s a ridiculous assertion on his part. But anyway, look, people have a right to question all of our ages. It’s a totally legitimate thing. All I can say is watch me. Just watch me.”

It is folly, surely, to analyze Trump’s words too literally: If he really thinks Biden is so weak that he hopes he wins the Democratic nomination, why would he say so, and then simultaneously say that he thinks Biden is about to get beat by more liberal and energetic rivals in his party?

On the other hand, it is probably equal folly to look too hard for hidden motives and stratagems in his remarks: Trump mocks his leading opponents because that’s what he has always done, giving no more thought than a shark does about whether he prefers to bite first in the swimmer’s thigh or torso.

Even so, the day in Iowa did unmistakably show Biden and Trump both tackling strategic imperatives.

The most important involved taking well-known life stories and presenting them in the most favorable light. Biden and Trump both can appear either commanding or vulnerable depending on the frame of reference.

Biden, in one light, can be seen as latter-day Harold Stassen, still at it after all these years, a guy who always thought he would be a good president but never convinced many voters of that. It was this interpretation that Trump seemed very purposefully trying to amplify.

“I call him ‘1% Joe’ because until Obama came along he didn’t do very well,” Trump honked, in remarks on the White House South Lawn as he departed for Iowa.

At the same time, it is possible to view Biden’s autumnal moment in almost Churchillian terms — a man who spent decades in preparation, whose moment has come round at last. Biden suggested something like this in his first appearance of the day in Ottumwa. He said he would run his 2020 campaign in the same humble and persistent fashion that he first ran for Senate in 1972 at the age of 29: “My name is Joe Biden. I’m running, in this case, running for president of the United States. Look me over….”

In Trump’s case, he knows that he can look weak or formidable from different angles. From a conventional perspective, he is a president who never commands majority support in polls and is losing in head-to-head match-ups against Biden and other top Democrats in key states. From another perspective, though, Trump is the guy who has confounded expectations and successfully caricatured rivals in his own party and among the Democrats time and again.

The relish with which he came to Iowa (ABC News morning anchor George Stephanopoulos was on board Air Force One for the trip) and showered ridicule on Biden was as if he was trying to signal to Democrats: I’ve still got it, and will do to your 2020 nominee what I did to Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Beyond atmospherics, the day had Trump and Biden both doing clean up chores on some substance.

During a visit to Iowa last month, Biden appeared to discount the competitive threat posed by China, in remarks that were widely criticized. “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man!” he said in May. “They’re not competition for us.”

On Tuesday, Biden clarified: “We need to get tough with China. They are a serious challenge to us, and in some areas a real threat. And every single step that Donald Trump is taking is only exacerbating the challenge.” He said Trump is mishandling the trade competition with China, and generally weakening the United States‘ position with allies in ways that China will exploit.

Trump has his own issue vulnerabilities with Iowans. His trade battles with China and other countries have imposed high costs on domestic agriculture. While he has pushed successfully for farming relief subsidies, the day was an effort to further mend fences. He brought his Secretary of Agriculture along with him. He toured the Southwest Iowa Renewable Energy facility, an ethanol plant in Council Bluffs that relies on Iowa corn. Among the participants for the tour: Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig and Steve Wellman, director of the Nebraska Department of Agriculture.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer led the charge this week in pushing the first pay raise for members of Congress in a decade. But now he’s paying for it.

The second-highest ranking House Democrat is taking fire from across the caucus after trying to enact the salary hike, a move some vulnerable Democrats fretted would be politically disastrous and could even cost them their seats next year.

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Hoyer is now waging war on multiple fronts — an ugly public relations battle, a fraught fight with Republicans, and fierce criticism within his own party, including some close allies — in effort to give lawmakers a cost-of-living boost.

In the broader caucus, the majority of Democrats are on board with Hoyer, arguing that congressional salaries for lawmakers and staff have failed to keep pace with skyrocketing costs of housing in the Washington area, as well as back home. But many members are reluctant to speak up, privately complaining the attack ad basically writes itself.

In a closed-door meeting Monday night, Hoyer fended off members of his own leadership team in a testy exchange. Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), who leads the Democratic Caucus’ messaging arm, said he would vote against the pay hike on the floor. But Hoyer pushed back, telling Cicilline that his spot at the leadership table sometimes required taking tough votes, according to multiple sources familiar with the conversation.

Cicilline, who was one of several members in the room who voiced concerns, declined to comment on the meeting and would not say whether he backed the cost of living increase for members: “I’m not going to discuss what we said in the leadership meeting.”

The perennially contentious issue is causing a split in the caucus, pitting many battleground freshmen against long-time Democrats who say they’re fighting for fair pay for their staff.

“I do not pay attention to the frontliners. Most of them are scared of their shadows. At some point you have to do what’s best for the institution,” said Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-La.), who backed up Hoyer over the pay issue in a recent meeting with GOP leaders. “I absolutely think there’s a majority of members who are for this idea.”

Hoyer remains defiant even after Democrats yanked a spending bill, typically considered the least contentious measure of all, because it would have forced a vote on the pay issue. Hoyer and other supporters argue that it’s not a pay increase but simply an adjustment to keep salaries in line with rising living costs after a decade of dormancy — a position that Hoyer has taken for decades.

The Maryland Democrat told reporters Tuesday that lawmakers would indeed vote on the $4,500 pay increase in the coming months, and insisted that he can still make a truce with Republicans who object to the pay boost.

“Unlike some members, I’m pretty out front,” Hoyer told reporters Tuesday. “I think [a cost of living] adjustment is appropriate. Members have now seen 10 years of a freeze. We don’t want to have only rich people here.”

An aide to Hoyer said the majority leader will talk with Democrats and Republicans about the issue to see if they’ll address it in an appropriations bill or elsewhere.

But within the Democratic caucus, a small group of lawmakers are publicly and privately fuming at Hoyer, arguing that he consulted Republican leaders but not his own caucus.

“I don’t think it was wise at this moment, that’s for sure,” said Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.), who represents the city of Flint, where the average annual income is about $26,000. Members of Congress earn $174,000. “When working Americans are not seeing their wages go up, I can’t imagine how we do this.”

“A lot of us think that it’s the wrong move and the wrong time,” Rep. Ben McAdams (D-Utah) added. “I think people do expect to work together, but let’s work to solve health care and the rising cost of prescription drugs before we work together to give ourselves a raise.”

McAdams, one of Democrats’ most vulnerable freshmen, expressed his opposition to Hoyer and introduced an amendment that would have blocked the increase.

Hoyer — who often touts his ties to the party’s moderate members, including many in the historic freshman class — has suddenly found himself at odds with many of the new Democrats who helped deliver them the majority.

Instead, he has won support from progressives, including freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) — who tweeted in favor of the cost of living adjustment — while hearing an earful from battleground Democrats like McAdams and Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-S.C.).

But not all swing-district Democrats are looking to avoid a floor fight on the issue.

“I don’t need the increase personally. But not everybody is in that position, and I want the country served by the best and brightest,” said Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), a wealthy businessman who ousted a GOP incumbent in 2018. “I think Mr. Hoyer is looking out for people, and that’s what we should be doing.”

Still, many vulnerable freshmen said they were stunned by Hoyer’s efforts, unaware that the spending bill — which had already advanced in committee — would have allowed the pay increase. Several lawmakers said they learned about it for the first time just before a large group of members headed to Europe for World War II commemoration last week.

“This really caught us by surprise. Everyone was like, ‘what the hell?’” one Democratic aide said.

Hoyer has been pushing for the cost of living adjustment behind the scenes for months. Earlier this year, he helped convince the House Appropriations Committee to allow the pay raise in this year’s bill — something that Republicans had intentionally blocked every year since 2009. But privately, some had warned that the issue could blow up on the floor.

Other Democrats, including many in the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, have strongly backed Hoyer’s intentions.

“Many of us have to support two households. Many of us don’t have two incomes. Many of us live in areas where it’s very, very expensive to live,” said Rep. Karen Bass, chair of the CBC.

“The expenses that go along with this position are substantial,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the CPC, added. “We have to be able to explain some of this, but in the end, we want to fight for every worker to get raises every year, that should be part of our platform.”

Hoyer’s plan required buy-in from House Republican leaders — an accord that he thought he had secured in a private meeting with House Minority Leader McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.).

But the party leaders’ hold-hands-and-jump strategy backfired after the National Republican Congressional Committee, the GOP’s campaign arm, failed to follow directives from McCarthy not to attack Democrats on the issue.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, McCarthy would not publicly endorse the idea. But he didn’t rule it out, and his talking points closely matched Hoyer’s — arguing that Congress shouldn’t be run by the rich, and pointing out that the executive branch has been taking cost-of-living increases even as Congress froze its own pay.

“I do not want Congress, at the end of the day, to only be a place that millionaires serve. This should be a body of the people. And I think it’s something that should be looked at it,” McCarthy said.

President Donald Trump’s deal with Mexico faces such huge logistical hurdles that neither country may be able to carry out its promises.

One key part of the deal is Mexico’s agreement to deploy its newly formed national guard to intercept and possibly deport migrants who cross its southern border. But Mexico may not have that force trained and ready to deal with a population of asylum seekers.

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The deal will also expand the Trump administration’s policy of keeping migrants waiting in Mexico while their asylum applications are processed in the U.S. But Mexico is already struggling to handle more than 11,000 migrants who the U.S. has dumped back into that country since Trump rolled out the program in January.

Neither the U.S. nor Mexico has offered a detailed plan for how the counter-migration strategy will be implemented, even as both countries face a tight timeline to produce results. Officials from the two countries are expected to meet in 45 days to evaluate the effect on migrant flows, and the U.S. will monitor results daily.

But border watchers say they have no idea how Mexico will handle the joint demands, particularly as the massive case backloads in U.S. immigration courts could keep migrants waiting south of the U.S. border for months or even years.

“To try to imagine how they’re going to double or even triple those numbers over the next few months is kind of mind boggling,” said Chris Wilson, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. “I just literally don’t know where all those people are going to go.”

Here’s a closer look at obstacles to implementing the agreement:

1. Mexico’s capacity to absorb migrants

The most immediate pressure point will be on Mexican border communities. As part of the deal reached Friday, the U.S. vowed unilaterally to expand its “remain in Mexico” program — formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols — from targeted areas to the entire southwest border.

More than 11,000 migrants have been forced to wait in Mexico under the program since its launch in January, according to the Mexican government. But that’s just with it operating in Border Patrol’s San Diego and El Centro sectors in California, and its El Paso sector in Texas and New Mexico.

That number is poised to skyrocket in the coming weeks, even as U.S. immigration courts already face a massive case backlog that has worsened in recent years.

The Hope Border Institute, a pro-migrant group operating around El Paso, Texas, and across the border in Ciudad Juárez, has encountered migrants sent to Juárez with U.S. court hearings scheduled for April 2020 — nearly one year ahead.

“How do you house and feed and potentially gainfully employ those people if they’ve got a very long time to wait?” said Roberta Jacobson, a former U.S. ambassador to Mexico who resigned in May 2018. “I have no idea to what extent Mexican border cities and crossings are ready for that, although I suspect they’re not.”

Several Mexican officials — including the governors of Sonora and Chihuahua — have said they don’t have the resources to care for migrants.

2. Scaling up “remain in Mexico”

The Trump administration, too, will need to scramble to expand “remain in Mexico.”

The initiative currently operates out of border sectors and ports with courts and temporary holding facilities nearby. At more remote border outposts, the agency may need to procure space for courts and erect tents to house migrants. The U.S. also could face difficulties communicating with migrants forced to stay in Mexico during asylum proceedings.

Resolving those issues won’t be “an overnight kind of thing,” according to a Homeland Security Department official familiar with the program. “The system wasn’t meant to work this way.”

At the same time, Justice Department attorneys will be tasked with defending the program in court. In May the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit allowed federal immigration officials to continue returning migrants pending its ruling on a challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

3. Mexico’s nascent National Guard

The second core component of the deal — Mexico’s deployment of its national guard to stem migration — could easily backfire.

It was only in February that Mexico’s Congress approved the creation of a national guard, and the legal framework to permit its operation was finalized just last month.

The initial force — which is set to reach 83,000 members by the end of the year — will consist of Mexican federal and military police officers, but it isn’t clear they will be trained adequately to deal with migrant families.

“Historically, we’ve seen in Mexico that the priority has been to detain and deport people, over ensuring that they are informed of their rights, including the right to seek protection,” said Maureen Meyer, director of the Mexico program at the Washington Office on Latin America.

The Mexican government pledged to deploy 6,000 guard members to its southern border and throughout the country.

Getting the numbers shouldn’t be a problem, since Mexico can draw on the Federal Police and Army and Navy police units. The greater difficulty will be whether the guard members will have the skills necessary to deal with migrant children, and to follow proper asylum procedures.

4. A sketchy aid commitment to Central America

The Mexican government considers funding for Central American development a major priority, but the agreement struck Friday doesn’t commit any new funds to the effort.

The Trump administration in March said it would slash hundreds of millions in aid to El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras over the inability of those countries’ governments to halt the outward flow of migrants. The agreement doesn’t restore those funds, either.

A joint statement issued by the U.S. and Mexico Friday spoke of addressing the root causes of migration only in general terms — with no funding commitments. The document said the two countries were devoted to “promoting development and economic growth in southern Mexico and the success of promoting prosperity, good governance and security in Central America.”

Speaking to reporters Monday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. didn’t agree to provide any aid money as part of the deal.

5. A complicated asylum deal

Mexico’s Foreign Secretary Marcelo Ebrard said that if the current set of measures fails to stem the northward flow of migrants, the Mexican government will need to begin discussions over a regional asylum pact.

He said discussions would involve Guatemala, Panama and Brazil, three nations that are transit points or destinations for migrants.

The task of finalizing a regional asylum agreement could be enormously complicated and require the approval of legislative bodies in multiple countries, including Mexico.

But a slow-moving process could benefit the Mexican government in its negotiations with Trump, who faces reelection next year.

“It diversifies and spreads the risk, and certainly slows the calendar,” said Jacobson, the former ambassador, “which is what they want to do.”