Another one of Joe Biden's senior moments went viral after he claimed, without evidence, that he was getting "heat" for naming Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense and then forgot Austin's name.
"And so, it's all about treating people with dignity. And it's about making sure that—look, I mean, for example, look at the heat I'm getting because I... I named a, uh, the, uh, secretary of defense — the black man...I named Ketanji Brown, because of the people I've named," Biden said in an interview with BET on Wednesday.
BIDEN: "Look at the heat I'm getting because I, I named a, uh, the, uh, secretary of defense — the black man" 🥴 pic.twitter.com/PJYzDznpIV
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 18, 2024
Can anyone recall any "heat" that Joe Biden got or is getting for naming Lloyd Austin? He did get heat earlier this year in the wake of the scandal surrounding Austin's secret hospitalization earlier this year when nobody at the White House knew Austin wasn't around for nearly a week. Biden hadn't communicated with him in at least seven days, if not more, despite the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and the Ukraine-Russia war.
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Republicans did call for Austin to be fired, but that had nothing to do with this skin color, as Biden appears to be implying here.
"When one of the country’s two National Command Authorities is unable to perform their duties, military families, Members of Congress, and the American public deserve to know the full extent of the circumstances," Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) said in a statement at the time. "This episode further erodes trust in the Biden Administration, which has repeatedly failed to inform the public in a timely fashion about critical events such as the Chinese spy balloon and the withdrawal from Afghanistan."
Austin's shocking lack of transparency in that situation should have resulted in his dismissal. But there was no accountability. Why? Well, we all know how important identity politics is to Biden, and he wasn't about to let go of one of his “diverse” cabinet members. Biden has made his affirmative action administration a key part of his pandering to minority voters, and since polls show that his standing with minorities is already in trouble, he's not going to risk being the guy who fired the first black secretary of defense.
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Nobody cared that Joe Biden named a black man as secretary of defense, just as no one was scandalized when President George W. Bush named Colin Powell as his first secretary of state. The issue with Austin has always been the lack of accountability. Should he have been fired after being MIA for a week? Yes? But he wasn't.
Nor was he or anyone held accountable after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Of course, the real issue here is that Biden forgot Austin's name and seemed only to be able to recall that he is a black man. Imagine for one second if it had been Donald Trump who forgot the name of one of his cabinet members and referred to him instead as a "black man."
The media would have a field day. We all know it.
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