Joe Biden revealed on Wednesday that he had talked to the family of Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin, 24, who suffered a cardiac arrest during Monday night’s Bills-Bengals game.
Hamlin collapsed during the first quarter of the game after he tackled Cincinnati Bengals receiver Tee Higgins, who made a 13-yard catch. Hamlin got up after the tackle, took a step back, and then collapsed to the ground.
Biden, who has so far been unable to find the time to visit the southern border because he has “more important things to do,” reportedly visited with Hamlin’s family on Wednesday and spoke with them at length.
When asked by a reporter if he thought the NFL was “getting too dangerous,” Biden responded, “No. Look, the idea that you’re going to have — look, you got guys that are 6’8”, 340 pounds running a 4.8 40. I mean, you know, you hit somebody with that kind of force — now, that’s not what happened here. I don’t know how you avoid it. I think working like hell on the helmets and the concussion protocols that all makes a lot of sense. But it is dangerous, and you’ve got to just acknowledge it.”
Football, like any sport, particularly contact sports, comes with risks to the players — all of whom acknowledge and accept those risks. But Hamlin’s medical situation isn’t a head injury, and the force of the tackle was hardly excessive.
But regardless, why is Biden visiting with Hamlin’s family when he doesn’t seem to be able to find the time for other visits, like to the southern border? Perhaps a more appropriate comparison would be visiting the families of the victims of the Waukesha, Wisc., massacre? Then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki claimed that Biden wouldn’t be visiting Waukesha because the trip “requires a lot of assets,” but it was widely believed that the reason was that the Waukesha massacre didn’t fit Biden’s preferred narrative because it had been a black nationalist supporter of Black Lives Matter who drove the SUV through the Christmas parade in a racially motivated attack that killed six people, including an 8-year-old boy.
Biden also didn’t visit Brooklyn after black nationalist Frank Robert James went on a shooting rampage in the subway last year. Nor did he visit Orange County, Calif., after a church shooting left one dead and five wounded.
But he found the time to insert himself into the Damar Hamlin story.
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