President Biden is mocked for saying he has 'been to every mass shooting' during speech on gun violence outside the White House - to cap off litany of gaffes
The president spoke after the number of mass shootings topped 500 in the US this year alone. And it came days after the president falsely claimed to have been to Ground Zero the day after 9/11
By Dominic Yeatman
Daily Mail
Sep 24, 2023
"Kam, have I told you about the time I was on the battleship Arizona when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor?"
The gaffes came thick and fast at the weekend as President Joe Biden launched an initiative on gun violence with a claim to have been to ‘every mass shooting’.
The bizarre remark came days after he falsely claimed to have visited Ground Zero the day after 9/11, and have left many demanding to know whether he is lying or forgetting.
Speaking alongside vice-president Kamala Harris in the White House Rose Garden, he said his administration had been ‘working relentlessly to do something’.
‘After every mass shooting, we hear a simple message, the same message heard all over the country, and I’ve been to every mass shooting,’ he told his audience.
There have more than 500 mass shootings in the US this year so far and critics on social media were scathing in their response to the latest tall story.
The president claimed to have 'been to every mass shooting' as he launched a gun control initiative on Friday alongside Maxwell Frost, 26, the youngest member of Congress
In a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday night he said: 'Two of the great artists of our time representing ground-breaking legacy of hip hop in America, LL Jay Cool J, uhhh...'
‘Suspicious, if true,’ tweeted former US diplomat Alberto Fernandez.
‘Every weekend should be therefore spent in Chicago instead of Delaware,’ added Fox News contributor Joe Concha.
‘Wow! He was at ground zero the day after 9/11, he completely understands to devastation of the Maui fires from his experience of a kitchen fire, his son died in combat, and now he’s been to every mass shooting?’ wrote Cynthia Lynn.
The president managed to irritate guests with a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday night when he mangled the name of rapper LL Cool J, referring to him instead as ‘LL Jay Cool J, uhhh...' before settling on ‘boy’.
LL Cool J and MC Lyte received Phoenix Awards for their musical contributions at the annual ceremony in Washington DC
The Rose Garden speech on Friday came within minutes of White House press chief Karine Jean-Pierre, being asked to explain why the president had told the same anecdote twice about why he ran for president to an audience of fundraisers.
According to a White House pool report of the private event he began speaking just after 4pm in a living room in front of about two dozen people.
Biden discussed his economic record and reflected on his decision to seek the presidency and 'talked about the events of Charlottesville' as the reason for his campaign, the report said.
'A few minutes later, he told the story again, nearly word for word,' the report went on.
White House press secretary
Karine Jean-Pierre said Friday that President Joe Biden was 'speaking
from his heart' when he repeated the same Charlottesville story twice
Critics were quick to pounce but were divided on whether the President makes up stories or just cannot remember what he has done
‘It's important to note that the president was speaking from his heart,' Jean-Pierre told reporters.
'I'm not going to speak to comments that were made and during a campaign event.’
The president joked about his age as he hosted the Rose Garden event alongside the VP and Congress’s youngest member 26-year-old House member Maxwell Frost.
'I remember when I was young,’ he told Frost.
‘We have something in common. I got elected to Senate when I was 29 years old...that was 827 years ago but it was a while.’
The president is known to have visited the aftermath of several mass shootings, including those in January this year at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, and a massacre in a supermarket in Buffalo, Colorado in May.
He also visited Uvalde, Texas, that month where 19 students were shot dead at the Robb Elementary School.
But there have been 514 mass shootings - defined as those in which at least four people were shot dead - on US soil so far this year.
The new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention will be headed by Harris and attempt to help reduce gun violence by ‘centralizing, accelerating and intensifying’ efforts to combat it.
‘Created by executive order, I determined to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country,’ he told he told his audience which included survivors of mass shootings.
‘We all want our kids to have the freedom to learn how to read and write instead of duck and cover, for God's sake,’ he added.
He touted a bipartisan gun safety measure that he signed into law, while acknowledging the changes that remain stalled amid congressional opposition including dug-in House and Senate Republicans.
He called for bringing back the expired assault weapons ban.
'If you need 80 shots in a magazine you shouldn't own a gun,' Biden said.
Biden spoke about student movements like the one that emerged after the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida.
He quoted from students he said 'spoke to an entire generation of Americans who will not be ignored who will not be shunned and will not be silent.'
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