OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden briefly visited the wildfire-ravaged state of Hawaii after saying “no comment” to reporters who asked him about the tragedy, and residents are furious.
As the administration continues to give billions of dollars to Ukraine, the federal government has, so far, only given affected Hawaii residents a one-time check for $700, which prompted one resident in Lahaina, where hundreds of people are dead or missing, to tear into him.
“Still to today, I haven’t had any money come in,” she said. I haven’t had anybody call me back. I didn’t have anything. I have no idea. I lost my house. I lost my car. I lost my animals. I mean, come on, man. We’re not getting anything.”
“Til today, I still didn’t get my meds. I cannot get my meds yet. My medicine was all burnt in my house. My rent money was all burnt in my house,” the woman continued. “I have no money anymore. I think Joe Biden should take his $700 and get back on the f**king plane, and go home. That’s what I think.”
“The $700 compared to all the millions he’s giving to Ukraine. Why? We need it,” she said. “That’s why, we don’t understand why. We’re citizens, and we cannot get money. But if they’re not citizens, they get gazillions of dollars from the USA. Where… where’s our government? Fix your house before you fix somebody else’s house.”
“Is this how, like your community, other Hawaiians, you know, locals and indigenous people, is that how they feel? Pretty much how you feel?” the interviewer asked.
“Everybody feels that way,” the woman answered. “Come on. That’s where the local people stick together, and we help our own people because we know the outside people not gonna do it.”
Deputy White House press secretary Olivia Dalton told The New York Times that the president was misquoted.
“He absolutely didn’t say ‘No comment’ in relation to Maui,” she said. “And in fact, he had already spoken to the nation about Maui at that point, in addition to being in daily contact with senior staff, FEMA, and state officials as he marshaled a whole-of-government response to the fires.”
Fox News’ “The Five” co-host Judge Jeanine Pirro blew her stack on Thursday after the five-member panel’s liberal, Jessica Tarlov, attempted to defend something President Joe Biden said during his gaffe-filled visit to Maui two weeks after the country’s deadliest wildfire took at least 114 lives, with hundreds still missing.
During his visit, Biden attempted to ‘relate’ to Hawaiians who lost loved ones in the flames as well as practically everything they owned by mentioning a small kitchen fire that he said nearly resulted in the loss of his beloved vintage Corvette.
“I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it’s like to lose a home,” Biden said. “Years ago now, 15 years ago, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the Press.’ It was a sunny Sunday.
“Lightning struck at home, on a little lake that’s outside of our home — not a lake, a big pond — and hit a wire that came up underneath our home into the heating ducts, air conditioning ducts,” he continued.
“To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette, and my cat,” he added.
At one point, Tarlov defended Biden, who also turned heads when he seemed to lack awareness over a remark he made about a dog trained to uncover human remains wearing small boots to protect its paws from the charred ground.
“You guys catch the boots out here?” Biden appeared to ask the press traveling him. Afterward, according to Fox News, he smiled and said, “That’s some hot ground, man.”
His reference to the “hot” ground after the country’s deadliest wildfire did not sit well with many people who expressed their outrage online, though Tarlov moved to defend Biden.
“He was talking to a dog whose paws are on the ground!” she said, which set Pirro off.
“Are you kidding me? This is a guy who goes to an infern, an inferno where a thousand people and children are missing,” Pirro said. “He talks to a dog, and he talks about the fact that he almost lost a cat!”
“This guy has been lying from the moment he came on the political scene,” she said. “He has a lack of empathy, he is egocentric, he’s got a condescending smirk whenever anybody asks him a question from the press. He is lying, and he’s narcissistic.”
She added that she did not believe Biden went to Maui because he is empathetic but rather to “make it about himself.”
“The bottom line is he systematically lies,” she declared.
