On Friday, Joe Biden gave a speech at the annual Memorial Day event at Veterans Memorial Park in New Castle, Del. — his first public remarks since the revelation of his cancer diagnosis.

And it went as well as you would expect. And if you expected him to make the speech about himself and his family, you were right. 

What should have been a solemn tribute to the men and women who laid down their lives for this country turned into yet another chapter in the Biden family memoir. Rather than focusing on the fallen heroes we’re meant to honor, Biden managed to steer the spotlight toward — surprise — Beau and Hunter.

Obviously, he made some obligatory remarks about Memorial Day, only to pivot into an extended therapy session about his own personal grief.

“I know for many of you, Memorial Day, like for us, is deeply personal,” he said. “For the Bidens, this day is the 10th anniversary of the loss of my son Beau, who spent a year in Iraq.”

And then he continued with his personal story for quite a while:

And to be honest—it’s a hard day. His son and I—Hunter, who’s here in the crowd—I don’t know where you’re sitting, Hunter, but— all the way in the back there—his daddy came to this event with me. We were about the same age when he started.

He’d just graduated from high school, heading off to college. And you know, it’s, uh—being with all of you—what, quite frankly, makes things a little bit easier. It really does.

So thank you for allowing me to grieve with you.

Some of you know—some of you knew—my son Beau. He served in the Delaware National Guard, including a year in Iraq.

Remember I got a phone call—I was in Washington—“Dad, could you, what are you doing Friday?” I said, “What do you need, honey?” He said, “I want you to pin my bars on.” I said, “Pin your bars on? You have two kids, you’re not…” “Dad, somebody’s gotta do this, Dad.”

Proudest day of his life was putting that uniform on. That’s not a joke. That’s not hyperbole. That’s real. And you know, it’s one of the proudest things I ever did—pinning that, his bars on him. And it means so much to our family that the headquarters of the Delaware National Guard has been renamed after Beau.

His legacy lives on. His children, his grandchildren, his great-grandchildren—like those you lost—will be remembered. They’ll remember who he was.

That’s right: on a day dedicated to those who died in combat, Biden dragged out Beau’s name again, despite the fact that Beau died of brain cancer in Maryland, not on the battlefield.

In the end, Biden gave us exactly what we’ve come to expect: another tone-deaf, meandering monologue that turns national remembrance into personal promotion of his own grief. 

This is not the first time Joe Biden has invoked his son Beau during his Memorial Day remarks despite the fact that he did not die in Iraq, though Joe has claimed as much in the past. Memorial Day is specifically meant to honor and remember those who were killed in combat or as a result of wounds sustained in battle. 

"This week marks nine years since I lost my son, Beau,” Biden said last year at Arlington National Cemetery. 

Thankfully, his speechwriter made a point to highlight the fact that Beau did not die in combat, probably because Biden had been criticized for repeatedly invoking Beau and either saying or implying that he died in Iraq. 

“Just imagine, I mean this sincerely, I say this as a father of a man who won the Broad Star of Conspicuous Service Medal and lost his life in Iraq, imagine the courage, the daring, and the genuine sacrifice… they all made,” he said back in 2022.

Recommended: Uh-oh. Jake Tapper Has a New Problem.

While Beau’s military service was honorable, Joe’s constant invocation of his son’s death, especially for Memorial Day ceremonies, is anything but. It’s deeply inappropriate for him to equate Beau’s passing — tragic though it was — with the sacrifice of those killed in combat. When Biden met with the grieving families of the 13 U.S. service members who died during his disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, many were appalled, not just by his repeated glances at his watch, but by his insistence on making the moment about Beau. And he hasn’t stopped doing that. He even brought up Beau during a visit to the site of the Key Bridge collapse last year.

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