If you’re an elected leader and dozens of your constituents die in a storm, you owe it to them and their families to get the type of storm...
If you’re an elected leader and dozens of your constituents die in a storm, you owe it to them and their families to get the type of storm it was right. Guess what our president didn’t do?
In a speech that would have been laughable if it weren’t so enraging, President Joe Biden got mixed up on the type of weather that wrought deadly havoc over five states over the weekend — although he was entirely sure it was due to climate change.
And yet, Saturday’s speech in Delaware has gone without much scrutiny, even though it’s one of the most problematic performances of Biden’s career that didn’t involve some kind of racial or ethnic obloquy.
Biden said at the beginning his intent was to “provide an update on the deadly and devastating tornadoes that moved across several states in central United States.”
“I’m monitoring the situation very closely since early this morning. This is likely to be one of the largest tornado outbreaks in our history,” Biden said.
“Earlier today, I called the governors of the states that have been — experienced severe impacts of the storms, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri, as well as Tennessee.”
So, fine. Less than a minute into the speech and he was forgetting the type of weather that hit the Midwest and South.
“Jill and I pray — and I sincerely mean this — pray for those who have lost loved ones and for those who are uncertain of the fate of their loved ones. And the debris that you see scattered all over the hurricane’s path,” Biden said.
“They lost their homes. They lost their businesses. And it’s a tragedy. It’s a tragedy. And we still don’t know how many lives were lost or the full extent of the damage.”
If it weren’t such a solemn occasion, this would be 20 seconds of classic Biden. First we get some permutation of “literally,” “I’m serious, folks” or “sincerely” — adverbs or emotionally modifying phrases the president adores peppering his speech with. We also get a bit of performative religiosity with the very publicly Catholic Biden saying he’s praying for those affected.
Then comes the gaffe where the president can’t even remember the kind of weather that caused the tragedy — and it came amid a flurry of fragmented thoughts and sentences that last no longer than they absolutely have to.
But wait — there’s (sadly) more. Even though the president may not be sure about what kind of weather caused this, he’s darned sure that climate change had something to do with it.
“All I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impacts as a consequence of the warming of the planet and climate change,” Biden said after a reporter questioned him about the potential role climate change might have played.
“The specific impact on these specific storms, I can’t say at this point.”
But he was sure there was an impact, because of course he was.
“The fact is that we all know everything is more intense when the climate is warming. Everything. And, obviously, it has some impact here, but I can’t give you a quantitative read on that,” Biden said.
Social media users weren’t impressed by the gaffe.
And, of course, Biden partisans were willing to believe they’d seen absolutely nothing amiss here — and you shouldn’t, either.
Yes, it’s a forgivable offense — if it happens once. There’s a reason why Biden is associated with gaffes, however — and in this particular case, why it’s so insulting.
As of Monday, there were 88 confirmed deaths from the storms, according to The Associated Press. While an exact number wasn’t clear on Saturday, it was known for sure that many Americans had died.
If there was a moment for caution, it was this; even then, Biden couldn’t help but trip over his own words.
And we’re supposed to just ignore the cognitive decline? At this stage, Biden’s decline doesn’t distract from the point. It is the point.
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