In yet another less than steller moment for President Joe Biden, he was caught on tape asking his staff if he is “allowed” to take questions. Apparently, he was not allowed to do so, as shortly after he asked the question, the journalists were told to leave the room where he was talking and the live feed to the speech was cut.
The awkward moment occurred when Biden was speaking at the New Hampshire Democratic headquarters in Manchester, New Hampshire. He was there to thank campaign volunteers for carrying him to victory despite his name not being on the ballot due to a disagreement about which state would come first in the primary cycle. The White House wanted to remove New Hampshire from its traditional spot as the first race.
Speaking to those volunteers, Biden said, “I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it. Look, it stunned me, the write-in campaign you all did. No, it really did. I was very careful not to be here. But really, I was stunned, and I was really pleased.”
In the video of the questions incident that emerged from the stop in Manchester, Biden, at the conclusion of his campaign stop comments to the volunteers, said, “Am I allowed to take any questions?” He then said, “Anybody here a sta–”, appearing to be about to say “staff.” He then trailed off as the crowd laughed.
Stepping in to stop things before they got worse, a Biden Campaign staffer interjected “Thank you, press” and then the live feed of the campaign event cut. It thus appeared that, for some reason, Biden was not allowed by his staff to take questions.
Watch the moment here:
During his speech in Goffstown, New Hampshire, Biden spoke mainly about medical care, drug prices, and Obamacare. At one point, for example, he said, “You know, folks, Obamacare, it became known as the Affordable Care Act — and by the way, it’s still a very big deal. Over 100 million of Americans can no longer be denied health insurance because of preexisting condition.”
Continuing, he said, “But my predecessor and many Republicans want to take that away — take that protection away by repealing the Affordable Care Act. I’m not going to let it happen. We stopped them, literally, 50 times — 50 — 5-0 — times in the last administration. And we’re going to stop them again.”
Biden also bizarrely appeared to refer to McCain as his “predecessor,” saying, “Folks, we all miss someone who cast the deciding vote to protect the Affordable Care Act last — not — not long ago — my buddy John McCain — passed away. My predecessor — friend — he — that’s how he ended his career, voting “no” so we couldn’t — they couldn’t cut it.”
He also mispoke and said Republicans are trying to put entitlement programs on the “chocking blop,” saying, as the White House Briefing room transcribed it, “Many of my Republican friends want to put Social Security and Medicare back on the chocking blop [chopping] block again. If anyone tries to cut Social Security or Medicare or raise the retirement age again, I will stop them.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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