August 22 – President Joe Biden visited Maui yesterday after the devastating fires that destroyed miles of land and property and where more than 1,000 people are still missing and presumed dead.
In a speech, Biden said, “I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it’s like to lose a home. Fifteen years ago I was in Washington doing Meet the Press. It was a sunny Sunday. Lightning struck at home, on a little lake that’s outside of our home and hit a wire and came up underneath our home, into the heating ducts, the air conditioning duct. To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my 67 Corvette and my cat, but all kidding aside…”
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM said, “I don’t even know where to start with this one and a textbook example of how the media is at the knees of this administration. It’s just disgraceful. Any other president on the right hand side of the aisle, they would be starting impeachment hearings today.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “That island has been just devastated. The other point to me when you play that, doesn’t this amplify and illustrate why he does not do any interviews, press conferences? There seems to be just this constant bubble around him. I’ll bet, truth be told, that yesterday was probably an unscripted moment that his staff failed to intercept. But again, I think it illustrates why you see so little with him out at these kinds of events because of those sorts of remarks. There has been some coverage of this, what he just said from yesterday, but not nearly the coverage that you would expect for a president to be making those kinds of remarks in the context of what may be the biggest death toll, natural disaster death toll in recent US history, certainly. So it’s just very unfortunate.”
Biden was actually met with some protesters yesterday.
Barkdoll said, “That’s also not getting a lot of coverage. But as he and the First Lady were walking around they toured several areas on the island. There were people that were not happy with his presence there. So that was another piece that was not reported much yesterday.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM noted, “Republicans rage over Hunter Biden. I mean, no, it shouldn’t be Republicans only. First of all, in Hawaii, it seems like it’s hard not to think the reason they’re getting such little attention is they don’t need this to make Joe Biden look better. They mostly vote Democrat. But putting that comment aside. This is Biden’s Katrina. It should be. With the way that the press and then all of Hollywood just rubbed that in Bush’s face for years and years, through media through entertainment everything. And now Biden is making the same, I’d say worse kind of gaffes when it comes to Hawaii. I’m finding it very mild, nothing. Newsweek has the only real one I could pull up immediately and the headline doesn’t even capture what this actually was about. In the story, it says ‘Biden’s comments sparked outrage when he compared Hawaii to these fires.’ Can you imagine if this was a candidate the media didn’t like? There would be just front page news about that. And how about front page news about what we’re finding out about how Biden’s lawyers and the DOJ were going to move his cases along? That should be front page news, but you see the real difference here in the bias of the media.”
Ryan said, “But the lead story is Donald Trump’s $200,000 bail. That’s the lead right now. Not an incompetent and disgraceful president saying remarks about his cat and his Corvette and trying to compare his life. Oh, you might have missed a house. That means you got four or five other ones out there. You got four or five other cars, and you’ve lied your way through your entire life in front of people.”
Barkdoll said, “It’s baffling, his performance there yesterday. You do wonder going forward, he’s not going to be able to run the basement campaign like he did in 2016 for this next cycle. How does this guy perform? He’s going to have to be out on the campaign trail, assuming that he is moving forward. I’m still not 100 percent convinced, but assuming that he is moving forward, we know he’s going to have to do the diner tours and the county fair tours. You look at this yesterday with somewhat of a more controlled environment. What else is in store moving forward? This Hawaii situation is going to affect everyone in America because there are going to be billions and billions of dollars, federal dollars, sent there to rebuild and repair and pay for damages. That’s expected. I’m not saying that as a complaint. But going forward, you’re already seeing the reporting, insurance companies are pulling out of there. Tourist dollars are going to dry up there very quickly. You’re likely going to need more ongoing federal aid possibly for years to keep that island solvent. So you throw all those things in the mix, this is something that in an indirect way everyone in America is going to have to contribute towards.”
