The stress of the campaign trail may be getting to former Vice President Joe Biden. On Thursday at a campaign stop in New Hampton, Iowa, the 77-year-old Biden turned vicious when 83-year-old Merle Gorman, an ex-Marine and a retired farmer, challenged the Democrat candidate about his son Hunter’s job with Burisma Holdings, an energy company in Ukraine.
It seemed to be just a routine campaign stop until Gorman brought up what a lot of people are thinking. Why is Biden not facing the same media and legislative scrutiny that President Trump currently is facing, for what amounts to pretty much the same thing? “We all know Trump has been messing around in Ukraine over there, holding their foreign aid for them to come up saying they’re going to investigate you. We know all about that. [Trump’s] got no backbone. We know that,” Gorman said.
“But you, on the other hand, sent your son over there to get a job and work for a gas company that he had no experience for, absolutely nothing, in order to get access to the president,” Gorman said to Biden. “You’re selling access to the president just like he was.”
A stunned Biden paced around as Gorman spoke, then clearly lost his temper. “You’re a damned liar, man. That’s not true. And no one has ever said that,” Biden said.
Maybe recentpolls showing him running fourth in the early caucus state has the former VP a little bit on edge.
Gorman also questioned whether the former vice president is “too old for the job” that he’s currently running for. “One, you’re damn near as old as I am,” Gorman taunted. “You’re too old for this job. I am 83 and I know damn well I don’t have the mental faculties I did when I was 30 years ago. All right … forget that stuff that’s all.”
Biden hit back that he wasn’t “sedentary. I get up.”
“The reason I’m running is because I’ve been around for a long time and I know more than most people know and I can get things done,” Biden said angrily.
Biden then, ridiculously, challenged the 83-year-old Gorman to various physical contests to prove his vigor. “And if you want to check out my shape on, let’s do push-ups together, man, let’s run, let’s do whatever you want to do,” Biden challenged to cheers from the Democrats in attendance.
Biden also questioned Gorman’s intelligence by saying, “Let’s take an IQ test.”
Biden also added that his son Hunter had done nothing wrong.
Gorman fired back, “I didn’t say you were doing anything wrong.”
An indignant Biden then said, “You said I set up my son to work at an oil company. Isn’t that what you said? Get your words straight, Jack.”
Gorman then said that he’d heard the report about Hunter and Burisma on MSNBC, which fired up Biden again. “You don’t hear that on MSNBC. You do not hear that at all.”
“The hell I didn’t,” Gorman shot back.
Biden finally huffed. “I’m not going to get into an argument with you, man.”
Gorman summed up his opinion of Biden: “It looks like you don’t have any more backbone than Trump has.”
At one point during the back-and-forth, Biden appeared to disparage Gorman’s appearance by calling the elderly gentleman “fat.” Fat-shaming is a big no-no with the Democrats’ intersectional, identity politics base.
But Biden advisor Symone D. Sanders heartily denied that the former VP “fat shamed” anyone. She tweeted, “To be clear: Any assertion VP Biden said a word about the gentleman’s appearance is making this something it is not. In the latter part of the exchange, the VP began to say ‘Look, facts’ then said, ‘here’s the deal.’ If you’ve been to a Biden event, you’ve heard this before.”
Gorman went to the event since it was only a few blocks from his house. He said he was led to bring up the Biden family’s dealings in Ukraine because other questions at the event were less than challenging.
“All the others were softball questions, they might as well have been asking him what color the chandelier was in the vice-president’s office,” Gorman said.
Gorman is definitely not a Trump supporter. In the past he’s voted for Barack Obama, and this time around would like to see Elizabeth Warren, Pete Buttigieg, Cory Booker, or Andrew Yang as the Democrat nominee. “I would love any of them except Joe Biden,” Gorman declared. “I don’t have any ill feelings toward Joe Biden,” Gorman told the New York Post. “But he’s had his day in there and I’m not fond of lifetime politicians.”
Biden is gaffe prone on a good day, but Thursday’s meltdown is an especially bad look. During this campaign, Biden has at times looked befuddled and confused, stuttering and forgetting his pre-packaged lines on the stump. Challenging an 83-year-old man to feats of strength such as a push-up contest looks something more than his usual Joe-speak. It looks insane.
Image of Joe Biden: Screenshot from youtube video
James Murphy is a freelance journalist who writes on a variety of subjects, with a primary focus on the ongoing anthropogenic climate-change hoax and cultural issues. He can be reached at [email protected].
