Every once in a while, Joe Biden says something that is so downright perplexing and/or self-defeating that not even the people charged with explaining him can manage to spin his comments into a supposed positive for the administration.
Such was the case Tuesday during the White House press briefing, where press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed by Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy on Biden's remarks from Saturday where he in a nutshell said that he had been too busy to visit East Palestine, Ohio, this despite his vacation-heavy schedule.
To quickly recap, Biden was in Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia when he was asked by a reporter why he hadn't yet visited East Palestine, Ohio, the site of a massive train derailment catastrophe back in February. Here's how the exchange went down:
Reporter: You said in March that you would go to East Palestine, Ohio. You came here. How come you haven’t gone to East Palestine yet?
Biden: Well, I haven’t had the occasion to go to East Palestine. There is a lot going on here, and I just haven’t been able to break.
I was thinking whether I’d go to East Palestine this week, but I then was reminded I’ve got to go literally around the world. I’m going from — from Washington to India to Vietnam to — and so, I — it’s was going to be a while.
As RedState reported earlier, Biden's answer did not go over well at all with some of the residents of East Palestine, who told Fox News in so many words that they were tired of Biden's lack of compassion, and of having their intelligence repeatedly insulted.
Not surprisingly, Doocy took the opportunity that presented itself during the Tuesday briefing to question Jean-Pierre over what Biden said, even to the point of noting that Biden was recently vacationing in Lake Tahoe, which obviously is not indicative of someone who just can't seem to break away from everything else he has going on in order to provide reassurances to the people of East Palestine in person:
Doocy: Biden "said...he hasn't had the occasion to go to East Palestine. 'I just haven't been able to break.' The derailment was on February 3. [He] has not had a break since February 3?"
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 5, 2023
KJP: "The President will go to East Palestine, he promised that he would and he will." pic.twitter.com/ACCc4FC3pS
Doocy: "So, [Biden] was not on a break when he was in Lake Tahoe?"
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 5, 2023
KJP: "I will say this again. The President is going to go to East Palestine as he says he is committed to do. You saw him this Saturday visit a rural area, right, that was devastated...by Hurricane Idalia". pic.twitter.com/jbv5uCYgnt
You know it's getting bad for Joe Biden when he leaves his handlers at a loss for words. Then again, it is officials in the Biden administration who in the past have spun his abdications into him being busy when he wasn't, so if nothing else, Jean-Pierre's non-answer was at least a departure from that nonsense.
Just for the record, here's a compilation of Biden's foreign and domestic travels since the East Palestine train derailment happened:
Per @jacobkschneider’s count: Joe Biden has made at least 69 domestic and international trips since the East Palestine derailment: https://t.co/qpKEVuetSt pic.twitter.com/9Kkhk1hDLi
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) September 5, 2023
But yeah, he's had no time to get out to East Palestine. Sure.
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