While welcoming the University of Connecticut men’s basketball team to the White House on Friday, President Joe Biden was briefly interrupted by an audience member in the crowd.
The 2023 NCAA Men’s National Championship team was honored as part of a long tradition of champion sports teams visiting the White House. The Louisiana State University women’s basketball team was also honored on Friday after winning their school’s first national championship earlier this year.
Biden made few comments upon his arrival at UConn, praising the team as one of the premier college basketball programs in the country. Friday marked the Huskies’ fifth trip to the White House, a trip for each national title they have.
President Joe Biden speaks with a child in the crowd as he honors the University of Connecticut Huskies men’s basketball team to celebrate their 2023 NCAA Championship at the White House on May 26, 2023 in Washington, DC. A video of Biden’s response to a child who cried during his speech on Friday is being compared to a previous video of former President Donald Trump.
Jim Watson / AFP via Getty
Shortly after the president’s remarks, a small child in attendance began crying in the background, prompting Biden to pause his speech.
Biden said, “It’s fine, look, she’s allowed to do whatever you want.” “Kids rule my house, okay?”
“I don’t blame you, I’m bored of mine too,” joked the president, taking a moment off his podium to ask the child’s age.
A clip of the conversation was shared on Twitter by the account asin And a video quickly drew comparisons to former President Donald Trump reacting to a similar interruption at a campaign rally in 2016. During an event in Loudoun County, Virginia, the former president acknowledged a crying baby in the background of his speech, telling the mother, “Don’t worry about it.”
Although a few minutes later, Trump again stopped his speech and said, ‘Actually I was joking, you can get that kid out of here.’
“I think she really believed in me that I love baby cries when I speak,” he continued, receiving mild laughter from the crowd. “Never mind. People don’t understand.”
chris jacksonA county elections commissioner in Tennessee, on Friday, responded to a video of Biden’s response with a clip of Trump’s statements from 2016, commenting, “Character matters.”
Edited videos of Trump and Biden paired side-by-side were also posted parker butler, A rapid response director for the Democratic National Convention. Butler wrote alongside his video, “What a contrast.”
political commentator Brian Tyler Cohen Re-posted Butler’s edit, wrote, “The difference really couldn’t be clearer.”
Trump previously received backlash for excluding a member of his youth audience from Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, who at the time was running against Trump for the 2016 presidential election as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s running-mate.
According to a CNN report, after Trump’s program, Kaine said, ‘You are wondering who the child is.’
newsweek Trump’s press team has been contacted by email for comment.
Trump and Biden are both running for re-election in the 2024 presidential election, potentially setting up a 2020 re-match. Trump’s candidacy is currently being challenged by a sea of Republican competitors, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Trump’s ex-running mate, ex. Vice President Mike Pence.
Early polling is largely tilted in favor of Trump. A vote The poll, conducted May 17-20 by the SSRS Opinion Panel and released Wednesday by CNN, found the former president is the first choice among 1,227 Republican and 53 percent of Republican-leaning voters.
a separate vote A poll of 669 Republican and Republican-leaning voters released the same day by Quinnipiac University found Trump in the lead, garnering the support of 56 percent of respondents compared to DeSantis, who came in second with 25 percent.
Of the 1,819 American adults surveyed by Quinnipiac overall, Biden trails Trump by only 2 percentage points in the hypothetical 2024 matchup. However, the incumbent lost the race against DeSantis by 1 percentage point.
A large majority of Quinnipiac poll respondents – 65 percent – also indicated they think Biden is too old to effectively serve another term as president. Biden, already the oldest president in US history, will be 86 at the end of his second term and has faced many concerns over his mental capacity to continue leading the country.
On Friday, Professor of Political Science at Macalester College, Dr. Patrick Schmidt Responding to a video of Biden’s conversation with the crying baby, the president was “once again: funny, spontaneous, kind.”
“But what’s the over/under on how much Biden is slipping?” The headlines make the media think it needs to run before November 2024,” Schmidt said.
