Given that President Joe Biden has an awkward history of preternatural closeness with children, one of the things you’d think he’d be conscious about was never being recorded walking into the Oval Office with a kid holding each of his hands.
But this is Joe Biden and he’s barely conscious, much less conscious of how that looks. Thus, you may have seen yet another clip of the president with two kids making the rounds on social media over the past few days:
WARNING: The following tweets contain graphic language that some readers will find offensive.
This is weird as shit, even for Joe Biden…
All of the idiots that ignore and/or downplay these things are enabling this behavior. Parents, for the love of God… please keep your young children away from the Big Guy. pic.twitter.com/h5Z7BKmqvb
— Gain of Fauci (@DschlopesIsBack) May 19, 2023
The video begins with a girl asking Biden about his last trip to Poland. Biden, who doesn’t seem to understand what she’s saying, says, “Why don’t you come over to the Oval Office and ask me?”
Then someone behind the camera seems to ask if another boy can join him. They do, and the troika can be seen walking into the Oval Office.
“All of the idiots that ignore and/or downplay these things are enabling this behavior. Parents, for the love of God… please keep your young children away from the Big Guy,” a user named “Gain of Fauci” said in a Friday tweet. Another user called it “serious and disturbing.”
This is serious and disturbing.
— Azzila (@azzilathehun) May 19, 2023
Is it? Well, let’s get a little bit of context here. A bit of digging found that this clip isn’t exactly new. In fact, it dates from April — specifically from a White House Take Your Child to Work Day event, a day where pretty much everyone at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. had a reason to be around children.
The clip was originally posted by Marek Wałkuski, a White House correspondent for state broadcaster Polish Radio. He seemed to impute no untoward implications to Biden’s encounter with the children:
Po zaskakującym zaproszeniu do Gabinetu Owalnego przez @POTUS Nina jest zachwycona. Biden nie tylko pokazał zdjęcia rodziny i opowiedział o swojej pracy, ale nawet pozwolił posiedzieć przy prezydenckim biurku i poczęstował ciastkami. @polskieradiopl pic.twitter.com/4burIe70cO
— Marek Wałkuski (@Marekwalkuski) April 27, 2023
A computer translation from Polish to English gave us this: “After a surprising invitation to the Oval Office by @POTUS Nina is delighted. Biden not only showed photos of his family and talked about his work, but even allowed him to sit at the president’s desk and offered cookies.”
While it’s unclear who was with the children in the Oval Office or who requested permission for the boy to go in, it’s worth noting that Wałkuski has a daughter named Nina as well as a son. As for who was filming the video and whether they were aware of the, ahem, subtext some people might attach to it, it’s entirely unclear.
However, the footage is emblematic of a wider pattern Biden has, which is why we’re even talking about the unpleasant subtext in the first place; one of the first scandals his 2020 presidential campaign had to tackle was an allegation from a Democratic official that he had seriously violated her personal space during an event in Nevada while he was vice president. In response to that allegation — as well as other uncomfortable pictures that had accumulated over the years — the then-candidate released a non-apology apology in which he promised to be more respectful of other people’s privacy and get with the times:
Social norms are changing. I understand that, and I’ve heard what these women are saying. Politics to me has always been about making connections, but I will be more mindful about respecting personal space in the future. That’s my responsibility and I will meet it. pic.twitter.com/Ya2mf5ODts
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) April 3, 2019
“You know, social norms have begun to change,” Biden said in the video. “They’ve shifted, and the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset, and I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying. I understand it, and I’ll be more mindful.”
To paraphrase one Maury Povich, the social media record of his presidency determined that was a lie:
Biden is doing it again.
This time he touches a woman’s shoulder and doesn’t let go for 45 seconds pic.twitter.com/wFTG8DehW3
— Washington Free Beacon (@FreeBeacon) October 18, 2022
Creepy Joe Biden in action pic.twitter.com/TGVn11DaLn
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) February 3, 2023
“She was 12 and I was 30.”
– Joe Biden pic.twitter.com/bmit4z9oqa
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 23, 2022
Biden chatting with a child during bill signing
“Meet me after this, I can show you around the White House.” pic.twitter.com/ZjDOacyI9H
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 18, 2021
Nor, in fact, was creepy Uncle Joe an uncommon feature during the Obama administration, where he was vice president and there was no shortage of icky weirdness to be had.
If that wasn’t disturbing enough, in this clip, Biden not only touches a young woman but smells her hair, kisses her, whispering something into her ear, only to tell her “see you back home, I hope” after visibly creeping out her and who I assume is her mother. pic.twitter.com/WrFLWmAPFJ
— RAM (Richard Armande Mills) (@RAMRANTS) November 13, 2017
In this clip, Biden swears-in (R) Senator Jim Risch. During photographs, Biden touches Risch’s daughter, specifically asking to take a photo alone with her. You can hear Risch say “Dad’s going to stand pretty close.” (I wonder why?) Biden even jokes and says, “If I was young…” pic.twitter.com/LLqJ4guU0q
— RAM (Richard Armande Mills) (@RAMRANTS) November 13, 2017
Indeed, this wasn’t even the only time something questionable happened on Take Your Child to Work Day. Witness another clip in which he acknowledges a child’s question by asking her, “Yes, baby?”
“What’s it like in the White House?” the girl asked. Biden’s reply? “Well, what’s it like in the White House? Well, here. Come here. You hang with me for a minute and I — You don’t want to go into the White House? OK, all right. OK.”
Does this rise to that level? No, because it’s significantly more unclear what was going on here. From what we can potentially deduce, this girl’s father is the White House correspondent for a major European broadcaster. Was he or the girl’s mother with them in the Oval Office? Was he the one doing the recording? All that context is missing — and, given that Wałkuski works for a European state broadcaster, it’s unclear whether he would have even been aware of how this might look to someone more familiar with the president’s history.
What we can say is that Joe Biden still doesn’t get it, four years on from the first definitive allegations of him violating a woman’s personal space in an unsettling matter and the better part of a decade after people on social media began noticing uncomfortable moments involving the man who’s now president. He’s either too far gone to notice his disquieting quirks or too brazen to care about flouting the personal space of women and children. No matter which one it is, it still doesn’t reflect well on a man who’s seeking another term as the most powerful leader in the free world.
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