Conservatives on social media tore into President Joe Biden with a vengeance over the weekend, taking note of his appearing confused after giving his campaign speech at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, a speech in which he mainly attacked President Trump and rambled on about “democracy” in America, ignoring that the nation is supposed to be a republic, not a democracy.
The incident occurred after the president’s address. Immediately after the speech ended, First Lady Jill Biden quickly approached the podium and proceeded to take the president by the hand and lead him off stage after giving him a quick hug. It appeared that Jill and Joe whispered something to each other, but what that was wasn’t clear given the camera angles.
In any case, after he gave Jill a hug and as she readied to lead him off the stage, President Biden leaned back into the microphone and started speaking again despite the fact that the loudspeakers at the venue had already started playing exit music. He said, “I understand power. Thank you all so very much.” He then took a helicopter back to Delaware and appeared somewhat confused upon landing.
Predictably, conservative accounts on X (formerly Twitter) quickly found the clip and took Biden to task over what they represented as his apparent lack of mental acuity, one that could be dangerous given his role as leader of the free world and the many challenges facing America right now.
For example, one account responded to a tweet from the RNC saying that Jill had escorted Joe off the stage after the speech was over, saying, “🚨CORRECTION: Jill, Ed. D., GUIDES Biden off the stage following his remarks lest he get confused, and/or lost, or falls.”
The RNC, for its part, focused on Biden’s post-landing confusion, posting a video of the president looking bewildered and captioning it by saying, “After two weeks of vacation and a 32-minute speech, Biden is back in Delaware for a weekend respite. He was VERY confused upon landing.”
Another account gave a fake comedic exchange between Biden and the Marines, writing, “Do I get on the helicopter? No, sir. We just landed, sir. Where am I? Delaware, sir. Who? Delaware? Who? Your home, sir. I am? Why is this helicopter in my yard? Get that thing off my lawn!”
Watch the video here:
In his speech, President Biden said, “Today, we gather in a new year, some 246 years later, just one day before January 6th, a day forever shared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America — lost it all. Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause? I mean it.”
Continuing, he added, “This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical. Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about. The choice is clear. Donald Trump’s campaign is about him, not America, not you. Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future. He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power.”
He also accused Trump of trying to rewrite history, saying, “In trying to rewrite the facts of January 6th, Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election. But he — we knew the truth because we saw it with our own eyes. It wasn’t like something — a story being told. It was on television repeatedly. We saw it with our own eyes. Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest. It was a violent assault. They were insurrectionists, not patriots. They weren’t there to uphold the Constitution; they were there to destroy the Constitution.”
