As RedState reported on Friday, Joe Biden’s long-standing interview moratorium ended with a sit-down with ABC News. It had been months since the president dared to answer questions, aside from brief encounters with reporters outside the White House.

Nightline is obviously friendly territory, and the questions were mostly mundane at best. Expecting Biden to consistently make contact with softballs is never a good bet, though.

In a clip that was released on Saturday morning, the president was confronted with the comments from East Palestine Mayor Trent Conaway. In them, the mayor criticized the optics of Biden galavanting in Ukraine while still refusing to visit the ecological disaster area in the small Ohio town.

Instead of showing empathy, the president got noticeably defensive, holding back laughter and huffing in response, before ranting about how much his administration has supposedly done.

Biden smirks and immediately gets very defensive when a journalist tells him the mayor of East Palestine, Ohio, "says he saw you in Ukraine, and he says, 'It tells you he doesn’t care about us.'" pic.twitter.com/VBML5Np5mV

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2023

You can look at this clip in two parts. The first part is the fact that Biden has so little emotional control that he couldn’t stop himself from smirking and showing anger at the fact that a suffering town might think he hasn’t done an amazing job. Whatever one thinks of him going to Ukraine, and I think the trip was a rather pointless photo-op, there’s no doubt the optics weren’t good.

Contrary to media proclamations, there wasn’t anything especially brave about Biden going to Ukraine after notifying Russia ahead of time, especially when others had traveled to Kyiv all throughout the past year (including congressional delegations). He was in no danger, and the money is going to keep flowing either way. As to the geopolitical ramifications, I highly doubt Putin cares about a feeble American president cosplaying Churchill for a few hours.

With that said, the second part of Biden’s answer is just as problematic.

Let’s put this in perspective. Within two hours of that derailment, the EPA was in there. Within two hours. Every major agency in the United States government that’s had anything to do with rail and/or cleanup was there and is there.

Putting aside that the president ignored the pointed question about whether he’ll go to Ohio, he’s technically right that the EPA was on the ground in East Palestine within a few hours. What did the EPA do? They set the chloride on fire, causing a massive explosion and mushroom cloud that descended on the residents there and contaminated water for somewhere around a 5-10 mile radius.

Is East Palestine supposed to be thankful for that? Regardless, it is a problem for an administration when a major representative doesn’t show up until nearly three weeks after the disaster. When it’s Pete Buttigieg showing up to beclown himself, it becomes an even bigger problem.

Back to the original question, though, why won’t Biden just take a quick trip to East Palestine? It’s only 290 miles away. If he can suffer a 10-hour train ride from Poland to Ukraine, I’m pretty sure less than an hour in Air Force One is doable.

These seem like unforced errors to me, committed by an arrogant, senile president who can’t get out of his own way. But don’t worry, he’s not too old. Just “watch” him.

BIDEN: "It's legitimate for people to raise issues about my age. It’s totally legitimate to do that, and the only thing I can say is, 'Watch me.'" 😬 pic.twitter.com/vNR2SFPfZO

— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2023

We have been watching (because he used that same line many months ago in another interview), and nothing about Biden’s presidency should provide confidence in his ability to carry out the duties of his office now, much less in a second term.

How easy would it have been to just show up on the ground early on in East Palestine, especially given Biden has made trips for lesser issues? There would have been no downside. That leaves Occam’s razor in play, and it says that the mayor is right. The president just doesn’t care about rural Ohio, and this ABC News interview is proof enough of that.