Hecklers Hit Biden on Multiple Different Issues During Campaign Rally Gone Wrong
Joe Biden is currently the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, which means next week someone is going to rise up to be the new flavor of the week. We’ve already exhausted all of the front-runners and they’ve all regressed to the mean.
Who’s left? Tom Steyer and Andrew Yang? Amy Klobuchar might have a chance if she could induce the same sense of fear in the American electorate that she does in her IT department. Cory Booker doesn’t have any more “Spartacus” moments left. Is Marianne Williamson still around?
The problem is that time hasn’t eliminated any of that old Biden smell. This isn’t a guy who learns from his mistakes. He gaffes often? Well, you could either work on that or you could simply allow him to continue to gaffe like a champ. Guess which one his campaign staff has gone with.
And then there are his confrontations with hecklers from the opposing side. It’s something every candidate has to deal with, but Biden doesn’t deal with it particularly well.
That kind of anti-acumen was on display during an event in New Hampshire on Sunday night when several trolls managed to disrupt the event.
According to Fox News, it wasn’t long after Biden began speaking that the Joementum train officially ran off the rails.
“Don’t touch kids, you pervert,” a man in the back in the room yelled at the beginning of the speech, hearkening back to the fact that Biden has been overly affectionate with women (and, to some onlookers apparently, children).
Biden wasn’t quite prepared for this.
“This is not a Trump rally,” he said. “This is a democracy.”
“Don’t touch kids, you pervert!” shouted a heckler to Joe Biden at his NH campaign event. pic.twitter.com/9VW10JcO2v
— Andy Ngo (@MrAndyNgo) December 30, 2019
Cute, but it didn’t disrupt the protesters. One woman yelled “quid pro Joe,” a reference to Biden’s role in the firing of a Ukrainian prosecutor who had once investigated a company where Biden’s son sat on the board.
Another asked about Biden’s business dealings in the country.
“I’ve released 21 years of my tax returns, how many has yours? What’s he hiding?” Biden said.
“The last two hecklers’ comments seemingly referred to Biden’s links to Ukraine, which President Trump referenced in his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, a call that ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment,” Fox reported.
“Biden previously said that back in 2016, he had threatened to cut off loan guarantees to Ukraine unless the country replaced its prosecutor general, an official who had faced widespread allegations of corruption. Ukraine ultimately did replace the prosecutor that year.”
Nobody than the most atavistic followers of the “own the libs” philosophy would suggest these kinds of interruptions are good. However, how is it that Biden can’t figure out how to parry these sorts of things?
Trump can and has done it effortlessly, both on the campaign trail and as president. Other Democrats seem to be able to, as well. Biden hasn’t.
Thus, someone probably should have scared him off of arguing with the audience after an embarrassing interaction from earlier this month.
In that incident, a slightly corpulent attendee didn’t quite buy the former vice president’s explanation for why his son was being remunerated so handsomely by Ukrainian state-run energy company Burisma despite the fact he had no experience in the energy field or the Ukrainian market.
Biden called the man a “damn liar” but then seemed to go a bit further — although what he said remains under debate.
What it sounds like is Biden saying, “Look, fat, look, here’s the deal.” Biden insists he said “facts” instead of “fat.” On one hand, that doesn’t actually make any sense. On the other hand, plenty of what Biden says doesn’t.
The man told Biden he was “too old. I’m 83 and I know damn well I don’t have the mental faculties I did [inaudible].”
The man also said that Biden “sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company where he had no experience … in order to get access for the president. … You’re selling access to the president just like he was.”
Biden challenged the man to a push-up contest. But he swears he didn’t mean that fat part. Facts! He also challenged the heckler to an IQ test, which I’d really like to see.
This is Biden’s biggest weakness. It’s not just his gaffes. It’s that he can be baited like Marty McFly into a confrontation that isn’t going to work well for him. At the very least, he could take Taylor Swift’s advice and just shake it off.
These are all things he’s going to have to answer, too. Calling Ukraine a “damn lie” isn’t a proper explication for what happened there. While the first call-out was the crudest, we kind of forget Biden’s creepy violation of women’s space was very much a thing and likely will be again. Everything you’ve heard here he’s going to hear over and over again — and not just from the peanut gallery.
But no. This is going to keep on happening and happening. It’s like “Groundhog Day” if Bill Murray never learned anything. Unfortunately for the left, Murray was never the best hope at taking down Donald Trump.
Now, we can all start calling him “Quid Pro Joe.”
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