President Joe Biden darkly joked to a reporter Tuesday that he would have to run her over in the truck he was driving in order for her to ask a question about Israel.
“Can I ask you a quick question on Israel before you drive away since it’s so important?” The reporter asked Biden while he was stopped for a moment in a Ford F-150 he was test-driving in Dearborn, Michigan, the location of Ford’s Rouge Electric Vehicle Test Site.
“No, you can’t, not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it … I’m only teasing,” the president responded.
Biden wasn't eager to answer foreign policy questions.
Q: “Can I ask you a quick question on Israel since it's so important?"@JoeBiden: "No you can't, not unless you get in front of the car as I step on it… I'm only teasing." pic.twitter.com/UxzSQdM9r4
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) May 18, 2021
Biden drew criticism for his joke to a reporter seeking insight into the Middle East conflict that has been ensuing for days. Many noted how such “teasing” would have been treated by the media has it come from former President Donald Trump.
“Jake Tapper would be removing his glasses in a timely fashion and monologuing to the camera about creeping autocracy against a free press,” wrote columnist Stephen L. Miller.
Jake Tapper would be removing his glasses in a timely fashion and monologuing to the camera about creeping autocracy against a free press. https://t.co/REwaWfkD4E
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) May 18, 2021
“Joe Biden just threatened to run a reporter over with a car for wanting to ask a question about Israel. If President Trump had done this, he would have been impeached. Jokingly or not, this rhetoric is completely unbecoming of the President,” wrote Amy Tarkanian.
Joe Biden just threatened to run a reporter over with a car for wanting to ask a question about Israel.
If President Trump had done this, he would have been impeached.
Jokingly or not, this rhetoric is completely unbecoming of the President. pic.twitter.com/A1ghGwi5JC
— Amy Tarkanian (@MrsT106) May 18, 2021
Violence continues in the Middle East despite Biden calling for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas Monday. On the way to Michigan Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the goal “is to get to the end of this conflict.”
“We’re going to evaluate, day by day, what the right approach is. It continues to be that quiet, intensive, behind-the-scenes discussion are, tactically, our approach at this point,” Psaki said.
Radical Marxist group Black Lives Matter backed Palestine Tuesday, claiming it “always will be” seeking partnership with the “Palestinian liberation” cause. Tuesday morning, Israel killed 160 terrorists in Gaza. Terrorists have launched more than 3,100 rockets to Israel, and over 450 rockets have so far fallen in Gaza. 90 percent of the other rockets have been deterred by Israel’s Iron Dome. The White House agreed to send $735 million worth of weapons to Israel Monday.
Squad member Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., spoke with Biden for eight minutes in Michigan. Tlaib has been vocal in her anti-Israel stance and wrote on Twitter that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “commits war crimes and openly violates international law.”
.@POTUS + @SecBlinken: If you support a cease-fire, then get out of the way of the U.N. Security Council and join other countries in demanding it.
Apartheid-in-chief Netanyahu will not listen to anyone asking nicely. He commits war crimes and openly violates international law. https://t.co/KuDSbFStBv
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) May 18, 2021
Tlaib said on MSNBC Monday that Biden and Democrats are “taking orders from Netanyahu, who is on corruption charges from stealing from his own people, the people he’s supposed to be representing.” The congresswoman deleted a retweet in November 2020 that featured an anti-Semitic phrase used by Hamas, The Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Hezbollah to encourage attacks on Israel.
Source: The Federalist
