Speaking during the Monday, June 17 episode of his late-night comedy show on Comedy Central, “The Daily Show,” comedian Jon Stewart roasted President Joe Biden over his malfunction at the recent G7 conference, during which the president was looking at and greeting paratroopers off to his side rather than in front of him, leading to jokes about where he was looking.
The video about which Stewart spoke was the recent G7 meeting in Italy. Then, Biden, during one of the G7 events that involved paratroopers, looked off the frame and acted somewhat odd, particularly in the clips of the video went viral. As a result, it quickly became another Biden incident that took off and was used as evidence of his senility.
This one appears to have an explanation other than Biden’s age and mental health: there were paratroopers off frame at whom he was looking and toward whom he walked, but the video frame that took off makes it look like no one’s there. That makes sense, as there were a large number of paratroopers around the G7 leaders.
Watch that video here:
It was about that video that Stewart was speaking in his show on Monday night, joking that the elderly president, in the video of the G7 event that went viral on X, was “seemingly staring at what can only be considered ghosts or out-of-frame paratroopers.”
Continuing, Stewart joked that President Biden looked almost possessed in the next part of the clip, once he was back in frame and no longer talking to the “ghosts or out-of-frame paratroopers,” saying, “And then, when he’s pulled back into frame, somehow giving the impression someone has quantum-leaped into his body.”
Still not done, Stewart went on to mock the facial expression Biden had on, pretending to squint into the sun while putting on a pair of sunglasses, a joke at Biden’s habit of wearing Ray-Bans Aviator sunglasses. Stewart, joking while imitating Biden’s grimace and staring into the sun, jokingly said, “No, don’t look directly into the sun, sir.”
Watch Stewart here:
As background, Biden’s age has been a very central part of the campaign ever since the release of the Hur Report, which contained numerous worrisome details about Biden’s age. In that report, the special counsel said, “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
Another section that drew particular concern provided, “In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”), He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama. In a case where the government must prove that Mr. Biden knew he had possession of the classified Afghanistan documents after the vice presidency and chose to keep those documents, knowing he was violating the law, we expect that at trial, his attorneys would emphasize these limitations in his recall.”
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video
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