Is Biden too sensitive? President loses cool at reporter right after assuming office, says ‘Gimme a break’
On Thursday, January 21, a day after the inauguration of Joe Biden as the 46th president of the United States, the new Commander-in-Chief lost his cool. As per reports, Biden rebuked a White House pool reporter who asked if his new goal of one million vaccine injections a day was too low.
Biden, speaking about the vaccine, said that its rollout had been a "dismal failure so far", and described his plan for 100 million inoculations in his first 100 days in office as "one of the greatest operational challenges our nation has ever taken on". He also said, "Let me be clear -- things will continue to get worse before they get better," adding that he expected the number of dead to top half a million by next month.
Following this, a reporter had asked: “Is that high enough? Shouldn’t you set the goal higher? That’s basically where the U.S. is right now.” This was right after Biden finished signing ten executive orders relating to his COVID-19 plans. “When I announced it, you all said it’s not possible -- come on, gimme a break, man! It’s a good start,” Biden said in response.
This is not the first time Biden has retorted back. In March 2020, at Detroit’s first new auto assembly plant where he was doing a photo-op, Biden got into a verbal exchange with an autoworker at the campaign stop when questioned whether he was going to take away people’s guns. “You’re full of s***,” Biden told the man who accused him of “actively trying to end the Second Amendment.”
In February 2020, another example made national news. A young female voter at New Hampshire asked Joe Biden why voters should believe he can win. “You’re arguably the candidate with the greatest advantage in this race,” Madison Moore, a college student, said to Biden at a campaign event. “How do you explain the performance in Iowa, and why should the voters believe that you can win the national election?”
“Iowa’s a Democratic caucus,” Biden responded. “You ever been to a caucus?” When Moore said she had, he said, “No you haven’t. You’re a lying dog-faced pony soldier.”
At a campaign event in Wilmington, Delaware, in June 2020, Biden again lashed out when one reporter asked about people who questioned whether he suffered mental deficits. There too, Biden said: “You’re a lying dog face.” He added, “All you gotta do is watch me and I can hardly wait to compare my cognitive capability to the cognitive capability of the man I’m running against.”
The “lying dog-face” line has some context. Biden explained it at a North Dakota rally in 2018, saying that his brother loved to use lines from movies. “There’s a line in a movie, a John Wayne movie, where the Indian chief turns to John Wayne and says, this is a lying dog-faced pony soldier,” Biden said. He’s used it plenty of times.
At an Iowa event in December 2019, a young voter said that Obama had promised his father that he could keep his existing health plan after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, but his father wasn't able to do so. “Were you lying to my dad?” the voter asked.
“A lying dog-faced pony soldier. No,” Biden said, before acknowledging that some people were forced to change plans under the Affordable Care Act.