OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden gave a rare live press conference to reporters and managed to make some very eyebrow raising comments when speaking to an Associated Press reporter.
It happened on Thursday when he was complimenting the reporter about his objective reporting in the president’s first interview with a reporter in 126 days, The Associated Press reported.
The president was talking about the impact COVID had on Americans, a kids missing school when he began talking about the reporter’s daughter.
BIDEN: If you had, and instead of your child being, how old, five?
AP: Five.
BIDEN: Five years old. If your child had been 17 years old two years ago.
AP: I’m not ready for that.
BIDEN: Well get ready, man. Boy or girl?
AP: Girl.
BIDEN: Well I’ll tell you what, she’s gonna, she’s going to be crazy about you until about age 13. And then hang on. But all kidding aside, here’s the deal. Think about what it’s like for the graduating classes of the last three years. No proms. No graduation. No, no, none of the things that celebrate who we are. Think about it across the board. How isolated we’ve become. How separated we’ve become. Even practical questions like, you know, can you go out on a date? I mean (inaudible) the normal socialization, how does that take place? There’s overwhelming evidence it’s had a profound impact on the psyche of parents, children, across the board.
BIDEN: If you had, and instead of your child being, how old, five?
AP: Five.
BIDEN: Five years old. If your child had been 17 years old two years ago.
AP: I’m not ready for that.
BIDEN: Well get ready, man. Boy or girl?
AP: Girl.
BIDEN: Well I’ll tell you what, she’s gonna, she’s going to be crazy about you until about age 13. And then hang on. But all kidding aside, here’s the deal. Think about what it’s like for the graduating classes of the last three years. No proms. No graduation. No, no, none of the things that celebrate who we are. Think about it across the board. How isolated we’ve become. How separated we’ve become. Even practical questions like, you know, can you go out on a date? I mean (inaudible) the normal socialization, how does that take place? There’s overwhelming evidence it’s had a profound impact on the psyche of parents, children, across the board.
In another part of the interview he thanked the reporter for his objective reporting as they spoke about his economic agenda.
“So let me ask you because you brought it up, your domestic agenda. In speeches you’ve said your domestic agenda is key for helping the middle class and beating inflation,” the reporter said. “Do you have the votes as of today, because …”
“Yes. I think it’s changing. Well, first of all, I had the votes. If I had told you (garble) … You’re not doing (inaudible). I’m impressed by your objectivity, how you write. I’m not being, I shouldn’t say that on the record because then you’ll get in trouble,” the president said.
“I’m in trouble anyway. So it’s OK,” the reporter said.
“But all kidding aside. Usually (inaudible) the question I get asked in the beginning with the Recovery Act: Can you get this passed? How can you possibly do that?
He then bragged about the economy as inflation has been an issue, the fed raised interest rates and the stock market has crashed.
“I got 1.9 trillion dollars. Saved the economy. It used to be long lines, people in nice cars like we drive. Lined up just to get a box of food in their trunk,” the president said.
“People getting kicked out onto the street because they couldn’t pay the rent. Thousands and thousands of people. And guess what? It worked. Secondly, no, here’s the important point. The second piece of this is, that it also saw to it that we were able to provide for the funding for COVID, not only, not only the shots and the shots in arms, but also all the hospital costs. We were able to reduce the cost of insurance. My point is, people would say, “How can you get that done?” If I did, if any other president just passed that act, and the infrastructure bill, they’d say, ‘God almighty,’” he said. “Name me a president that’s done anything like that before. At the same time.”
