Watch: 30 Seconds of Dead Air, Mumbling as Biden Calls Into NBC During Thanksgiving Parade
This could’ve been kind of cute. Instead, it was just … awkward.
Mind you, I’m not sure that “cute” is what the leader of the free world should be aiming at, even on Thanksgiving. But I’d take it over whatever this was:
Joe Biden’s phone call during the #MacysThanksgivingDayParade went as you would expect… pic.twitter.com/2XEZDtjupr
— THAT SOUTHERN DUDE (@TSDmemes) November 24, 2022
Were I working in the Biden White House, I think I’d be scrambling around right now trying to find some other news to put out there to distract the American people in hopes that they’d forget this ever happened.
Someone in the administration, however, decided that wasn’t the direction to go, perhaps because they realized that, since this occurred on NBC, the number of people who actually saw it was probably, shall we say, limited.
So here’s how the official White House transcript recorded this exchange:
“Hello, Mr. President? I don’t think I can hear you. Can you hear me, Mr. President? (Technical difficulties.) Hello? Happy Thanksgiving. Mr. President, are you there?”
Yeah, he was there — but I’m not sure he was there, there, if you follow my drift.
After some silliness in which President Joe Biden credited NBC meteorologist Dylan Dreyer for the good Thanksgiving Day Parade weather — bet she’s never heard that one before — the phone call actually got a little weirder, if that was even possible.
“And just like millions of Americans, you guys watching the parade, what do you want to say to everyone watching right now?” Dreyer asked.
“We just want to say we’re so grateful for the people, for this opportunity, for the health that we have now in America,” first lady Jill Biden said. “And just Happy Thanksgiving.”
We’re grateful for the health that we have now in America is something the first lady of the United States actually said out loud. Did someone forget to tell her that she could write her comments down in advance and just read them into the phone? I hope that’s the case, because the alternative is that those were her prepared remarks.
Among other agenda items for the day, the first lady said they were planning to “just feel gratitude for our family.”
Uh … OK. Nice that you have time to plan out your feelings, I guess?
Dreyer at least had the good sense to post on social media just a gif of the interview, without sound.
So glad the call went through!! https://t.co/KT3nviPfWl
— Dylan Dreyer (@DylanDreyerNBC) November 24, 2022
I assume the plan was to show the nation that the president and his wife — vacationing in Nantucket for the holiday — are “just folks.” Or something along those lines. And maybe this is what Joe and Jill Biden think everyday Americans sound like.
But I bet Dreyer is hoping Al Roker recovers and gets back to work. Quickly.
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