OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden campaigned on the promise of being able to “cross the aisle” and be bipartisan, but what he has shown calls some of those promises into doubt.
Speaker of the House and California Rep. Kevin McCarthy has practically begged to meet with him to discuss the pressing issues facing our nation, like the debt, but the president has refused.
After the House passed H.R 1, designed to lower energy costs for Americans, he even quipped that he would bring the president’s favorite food to the White House with him.
Western Journal reported:
The legislation is aimed at increasing domestic energy production through streamlining permits to drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands and offshore. It would also end Biden’s moratorium on hydraulic fracking on federal lands.
Further, it would make it easier to obtain permits to mine for minerals in the U.S. that are used to produce microchips and make electric car batteries, the bill’s sponsor House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said.
Scalise argued this policy change is essential to ending U.S. dependence on China, which manufactured 75 percent of the world’s lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars in 2021 versus just 7 percent built domestically.
But the president said that the legislation would take the nation “backward” and said he would veto it if it got to his desk.
“[Biden] is making the decision that he wants to put the economy in jeopardy. I don’t know what more I can do,” the Speaker of the House said.
“I would bring the lunch to the White House. I would make it soft food if that’s what he wants. It doesn’t matter,” he quipped.
“Whatever it takes to meet. I just don’t know what’s changed from his comments before when he says, ‘It’s not right if people don’t sit down and meet together,’” he said.
Speaker McCarthy on wanting to meet with Biden:
"I would bring lunch to the White House, I would make it soft food if that's what he wants. It doesn't matter. Whatever it takes to meet." pic.twitter.com/U8Kc0xqrmT
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) March 30, 2023
The Speaker’s quip about “soft food” came after the president quipped about ice cream following the slaughter of three children and three adults at a Christian school in Nashville, Tennessee.
Fox News anchors weighed in on President Joe Biden’s performance after the deadly school shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee. The shooter, Audrey Hale, posed a significant issue for the media and Democrats as a female, transgender shooter she did not fit the preferred narrative of the right-wing, white male shooter.
But it was President Biden’s first comments after the shooting that caused many to say that he humiliated himself and the nation.
“My name is Joe Biden,” the president said at the White House as the bodies of six innocent victims, three who were 9 years old, still laid in the school. “I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband, and I eat Jeni’s ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs. You think I’m kidding? I’m not.”
“And who are those good-looking kids back there?” he said before finally commenting on the murdered children and adults.
“Before I begin to speak, and the reason I spent a little time on the kids, I — I just want to speak very briefly about the school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee,” he said.
“You know, Ben and I have been doing this our whole careers, it seems. And it’s just — it’s sick. You know, we’re still gathering the facts of what happened and why. And we do know that, as of now, there are a number of people who are not going to — did not make it, including children. And it’s heartbreaking. A family’s worst nightmare,” the president said.
“And I want to commend the police who repo- — responded incredibly swiftly — within minutes — to end the danger,” he said before making the tragedy political.
“We’re monitoring the situation really closely — Ben, as you know — and we have to do more to stop gun violence. It’s ripping our communities apart, ripping the soul of this nation — ripping at the very soul of the nation. And we — we have to do more to protect our schools so they aren’t turned into prisons,” he said.
“You know, the shooter in this situation reportedly had two assault weapons and a pistol — two AK-47. So I call on Congress, again, to pass my assault weapons ban. It’s about time that we begin to make some more progress.
“But there’s more to learn. But I just wanted to send my concern and hearts out to so many parents out there. I’ve been to so many of these sites, as Ben knows, by — virtually every one.
“And one of the things you folks should — I know you do know, but you should focus on — you know, just like when — in the military — when my son was in Iraq for a year, other places, you — there’s so many members of the military coming back with post-traumatic stress after witnessing the violence and participating in it,” the president said.
“Well, these children, these teachers, they should be — should be focusing on their mental health, as well.
“And so I’m grateful — anyway, sorry to start off that way, but I couldn’t begin without acknowledging what happened. And now I’m grateful that all of you are joining us here today,” he said.
Fox News host Sandra Smith said, “John, we’ll jump back in here. Considering the moment, the school shooting that just happened, left three children dead, three adults dead, shooter’s dead and we were told he would be addressing this off the top.”
Her cohost John Roberts said it was “rather surprising.”
“I thought that a somber President Biden would have come to the podium here and addressed the school shooting,” the anchor said.
