On Monday, Joe Biden spoke at an event celebrating Jewish American Heritage, and it went as well as you can expect from any of his public appearances. He may have even said some things that were decent and right, but those were overshadowed by the way slurred his speech and made some gaffes.
One particular gaffe was so egregious that it quickly overshadowed anything appropriate and correct that he may have said. The president mistakenly said that Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli citizen who is still a hostage of Hamas, was there at the White House at the event.
"My administration has been working around the clock to free the remaining hostages, just as we have freed hostages already. And here with us today is Hersh Goldberg-Polin," Biden told the audience.
As you can see from the video footage, not only was he noticeably slurring his words, but the confusion on his face was also painfully obvious. He didn’t seem to even understand what he was saying. Eventually, he figured out his mistake and added, “He is not here with us. But he is still being held by Hamas.”
Goldberg-Polin’s mother was in the audience, too.
BIDEN (slurring): "And here with us today is Hersh Goldberg-Polin..."
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) May 20, 2024
He's actually an American-Israeli still being held hostage by Hamas. pic.twitter.com/bvFCRBcQEL
I’ll give Biden a little credit for correcting his mistake, but what bothered me was that Biden once again said his oft-repeated line that his administration is working “around the clock” to free the remaining hostages. Back in January, Biden marked the sad milestone that Hamas had been holding the hostages in captivity for over 100 days.
"For 100 days, they have existed in fear for their lives, not knowing what tomorrow will bring. For 100 days, their families have lived in agony, praying for the safe return of their loved ones,” he said. "And for each of those 100 days, the hostages and their families have been at the forefront of my mind as my national security team and I have worked non-stop to try to secure their freedom."
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Biden has been claiming to have been directly involved in the negotiations over the hostages for months now, each time insisting that the effort has been “around the clock” and “non-stop."
"From the moment Hamas kidnapped these people, I, along with my team, have worked around the clock to secure their release,” he said back in November.
It’s now been seven and a half months since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel. Surely by now, we would have seen some progress with the efforts to release more American hostages. Yet we haven't seen any more hostages released since November.
The last American hostage to be released was a four-year-old American girl whose release likely wasn’t random. As PJ Media previously reported, she was the great-niece of Liz Hirsh Naftali, who is not only a big-time Democratic donor, Biden campaign donor, and a Biden appointee, but she is also one of the buyers of Hunter Biden’s pieces of artwork.
The absence of visible progress since is extremely troubling. Although the release of the young girl brings relief, the subsequent lack of substantial developments raises doubts about the sincerity of Joe Biden's endeavors to secure the freedom of the remaining hostages, particularly American citizens, from Gaza. Has Biden's motivation waned after securing the release of his donor's great-niece?
During a recent White House press briefing earlier this month, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby faced inquiries about the status of the American hostages. Sadly, he had no new intelligence to disclose.
"We don’t have any information that — that leads us to a conclusion that they’re — that they’re no longer alive. But we just don’t have any additional context whatsoever," he said.
REPORTER: "The five American hostages who are still unaccounted for. Is there any new intelligence about their whereabouts or their potential wellbeing?"
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) May 17, 2024
KIRBY: "Sadly, no." pic.twitter.com/9Q6hJc3AVm
Disgraceful.
The stagnant state of affairs over these past seven and a half months despite the “non-stop” and “around the clock” efforts is truly scandalous, and I’m tired of hearing Biden claim over and over again that his administration is working so hard to free the hostages because if it is, the incompetence is even worse than we could have imagined.
