On Friday, Hamas released two American hostages. It quickly became clear—to anyone with commonsense—that Hamas didn’t do this as a humanitarian gesture, but as a stalling tactic to delay a ground invasion by Israel Defense Forces.
How much commonsense does Joe Biden, or anyone in his administration have? Very little it seems, because he told reporters that Israel should delay its planned ground invasion until more hostages are released.
The White House is now tripping over itself with the most cockamamy excuse for Biden’s comment, which contradicted the administration’s previous position that it would not dictate how Israel conducts its war against Hamas.
Their excuse? Biden didn’t hear the full the question.
“The president was far away. He didn’t hear the full question,” White House communications director Ben LaBolt claimed. “The question sounded like ‘Would you like to see more hostages released?’ He wasn’t commenting on anything else.”
This is hardly the first time the White House has had to step in to clean up one of Joe Biden’s messes. When the wildfires were raging in Hawaii, reporters asked Biden about the rising death toll in Maui. He replied, “No comment.”
Those two words forced the White House to work aggressively push the narrative that the administration has been doing a fantastic job from the get-go. It failed to convince locals, who jeered Biden when he finally visited Maui.
Last year, at the White House Conference on Hunger, Biden tried to find Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) in the crowd to acknowledge her, apparently forgetting she’d died in a car crash a month prior. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre claimed that he spoke of Walorski because “she was at top of mind.”
Related: Joe Biden: ‘I Can Understand Why’ People Believe Israel Bombed Gaza Hospital
One of the more significant examples was last year when Biden made a series of misstatements that nearly got us into World War III. Within a matter of days, Biden suggested that NATO would use chemical weapons against Russia, told U.S. troops they were going to Ukraine, and inadvertently called for regime change in Russia by insisting that Putin “cannot remain in power.”
When Biden ran for president, he acknowledged the incredible power that the words of a president can have. He noted: “The words of a president matter. They can move markets. They can send our brave men and women to war. They can bring peace.” Yet, despite claiming to understand the incredible power the words of a president have, he’s been so incredibly careless with his words that the White House repeatedly has to scramble to fix his mistakes.