Biden Struggles with Cough, Bumbles Words While Attacking 'Donald Hump' in New Hampshire
Former Vice President Joe Biden struggled with a series of coughs Saturday during the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention while he was attacking the policies of President Donald Trump before making a word slip that sent Twitter a-flutter.
“Being part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s a code. It’s been the American code,” Biden said.
“It’s who we are, and President Trump does not get it (cough). American is an idea (cough), an idea that is stronger than any army. Bigger than any ocean and more powerful than any dictator or tyrant.”
At one point in his remarks, Biden called Trump “Donald Hump,” according to the Washington Examiner.
“I believe history will look back at this presidency as an aberrant moment in time. But if ‘Donald Hump’ … Donald Trump is re-elected — Freudian slip,” Biden said to cheers. “If Donald Trump is re-elected, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.”
“Freudian slip.”
Joe Biden accidentally calls the president “Donald Hump” during his speech at the New Hampshire Democratic Party Convention. pic.twitter.com/1XEUUygntB
— The Hill (@thehill) September 7, 2019
Biden’s mistake was a hit on Twitter.
#DonaldHump must be defeated … #Biden2020 pic.twitter.com/FeOMUwUK3C
— Kevin L. Lang ? (@SkyviewKevin) September 7, 2019
Dear @JoeBiden, if you promise to call him #DonaldHump always, I will vote for you in the primary over Mayor Pete.
Think about it. My offer expires the first time you say Trump.
— Chris O’C (@StupidGameTweet) September 7, 2019
During Saturday’s New Hampshire speech, Biden later fought a losing battle with the word “existential” when trying to describe the threat he believed Trump poses to America.
“It’s not hypothetical, his threat to this nation,” Biden finally settled upon.
Biden admitted last week he was a “gaffe machine,” and in an earlier New Hampshire trip got his states mixed up when he extolled the beauties of Vermont.
But some have said Biden is guilty of more than harmless slips of the tongue.
David Axelrod, an adviser to former President Barack Obama, took Biden to task last week for comments Biden made in which Biden made it appear that he had opposed the Iraq War during the administration of former President George W. Bush, Fox News reported.
It’s one thing to have a well-earned rep for goofy, harmless gaffes. It’s another if you serially distort your own record. @JoeBiden is in danger of creating a more damaging meme.https://t.co/ThCVCz4Fjb
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) September 6, 2019
“It’s one thing to have a well-earned rep for goofy, harmless gaffes. It’s another if you serially distort your own record. @JoeBiden is in danger of creating a more damaging meme,” Axelrod tweeted on Thursday.
However, former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell wrote in an Op-Ed for The Hill that only the media and political insiders — of which he included himself — really care about Biden’s gaffes.
“To us, gaffes by candidates are huge news; sometimes they wind up featured on the front page of newspapers. But often, average Americans don’t think that what we insiders consider a gaffe truly is a gaffe — or they really don’t care whether candidates are prone to gaffes,” he wrote.
But that’s not how Amanda Marcotte saw it in her assessment of Biden published in Salon.
“First of all, Biden’s unfortunate tendency to say dumb or untrue things, which helped end his presidential ambitions in 1988 and 2008, is proving yet again to be a little more troublesome than the word ‘gaffe’ implies,” she wrote.
“On the contrary, it’s starting to seem more like an indifference to the truth that borders on mendacity, or an ego too big to admit that it’s naughty to tell lies. Or, as some have suggested, it could also be evidence that Biden, who will be 78 years old on Inauguration Day in 2021, is slipping mentally.”
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