President Joe Biden had a senior moment at a campaign reception in Manhattan Wednesday when he repeated statements about the 2017 Charlottesville riot and his decision to run for president in 2020 minutes apart and nearly word-for-word.
The White House pool report described it: “POTUS began speaking at 4:09 pm. His remarks were given in a well-appointed living room after an introduction by the event’s host, Amy Goldman Fowler. About two dozen people were in attendance.
After briefly touting his economic record, POTUS reflected on his decision to seek the presidency. He told the story about the events of Charlottesville in 2017 as the reason for his campaign. A few minutes later, he told the story again, nearly word for word.
According to The White House Transcript Biden said:
“But then along came, in August of 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia. You remember those folks walking out of the fields literally carrying torches, with Nazi swastikas, holding them forward, singing the same vicious, anti-Semitic bile — the same exact bile — bile that was sung in — in Germany in the early ‘30s. And a young woman was killed. A young woman was killed.
“And this was — and I re- — you may remember it. There was a consequential piece of business going on. And the former guy was asked, “What do you think would happen?” He was the sitting president. And he said, “I thought there were some very fine people on both sides.”
“And I mean this sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, that’s when I decided I — I was going to run again.
Biden kept talking about his family before inexplicably repeating the story:
“You know, you may remember that, you know, those folks from Charlottesville, as they came out of the fields and carrying those swastikas, and remember the ones with the torches and the Ku — accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan. And in addition to that, they had — there were white supremacists. Anyway, they were making the big case about how terrible this was. And a young woman was killed in the process.
“And my predecessor, as I said, was asked what he thought. He said, “There are some very fine people on both sides.” Well, that kept ringing in my head.
“And so, I couldn’t, quite frankly, remain silent any longer. So, I decided I would run. And it became — I ran because I thought everything this country stood for was up for grabs for the first time in my career,” the transcript said.
This is completely fine pic.twitter.com/0MidfVs1UT
— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) September 21, 2023
