Joe Biden slammed for calling sister 'love of my life' in latest gaffe: 'He's going to win Alabama'
The bumpy road does seem to end for Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden as people continue to scrutinize his speeches and mock him at the slightest slip of the tongue or statement of the wrong facts. In one of the latest interviews, the former vice president became the butt of jokes after he tried to express his love for his sister with an unusual phrase.
Unable to hold any public rallies around the nation, given the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the only ways Biden has been able to get a platform to interact with his voter base have been through social media and appearing on mainstream news networks, talk shows, and podcasts to talk about his political agendas and in the process, try to promote himself as a candidate that people would want to identify with. One such medium was appearing on Wired's long-running and often viral segment -- celebrities answering 'Web's Most Searched Questions' about themselves.
Basically, some questions are printed on a cutout that resembles the Google search engine's dropdown options. The latter half of the questions are hidden with a piece of sticky tape and the celebrity doing the interview has to peel off the tape, revealing each question just moments before he or she answers them. Although Biden started off on a more or less uncontroversial note, confessing that he tries to refrain from googling himself, he soon made a bit of a gaffe early on in the interview. To the question "Does Joe Biden have a brother?" he replied, "Lucky, I have two younger brothers, I am the oldest of three and I have a sister who is the love of my life."
While his answer seemed innocent enough, the netizens could not help but pull his leg over his choice of phrase to describe his love for his sister. Many of the trolls also suggested that the statement might make Biden favorable to the voters in Alabama as it was one of the well-known states that allowed cousins to get married to each other. Although Biden was talking about his own sister, Valerie Biden Owens, who has often been seen accompanying him in the campaign trail, people who were mocking him tried to make Alabama references.
"'I’ve got a sister who’s the love of my life' November: Joe Biden wins the state of Alabama" one user commented on the video, while another said, "His sister is the love of his life? Nice joe wow why didn’t they cut that out." A third said: "He said he has a sister whos the love of his life....what about his wife?" A fourth quipped: "People need to stop relating his sister being the love of his life to the Alabamans. Everyone knows we go after cousins here, not sisters!! The nerve!"
However, there were people who defended Biden's remark. "This started a bit strangely and guys he never said he was in love with his sister. They have a special relationship as she's like his daughter especially as he lost his wife and daughter as a young man and his sister was there for many years to care for his other two sons and was there to help after he met Jill with their other kids as she was a working mom so he's just giving her a shout out, so settle down and listen to all he said. I guess that's why we're all so politically correct these days and he was just being himself, no need to twist the meaning...and then got better towards the end. Clearly he loves his sister and family. He sounds like he's infused with energy and doesn't seem anything like 'sleepy joe,'" one wrote, alluding to the demeaning nickname given to Biden by President Donald Trump.
It should be noted, however, that Alabama is not the only state that allows marriage between first cousins. There are 19 states in the US that allow marriages between first cousins, and seven states which allow only some marriages between first cousins.