YOU CAN’T EXPLAIN AWAY BIDEN’S JUNETEENTH MOMENT. The White House and its media allies are in full defensive mode over videos of President Joe Biden appearing to freeze, or zone out, or something, at three recent public events. The White House effort comes after the Republican National Committee made an aggressive move to spread the videos through social media.
The three incidents are Biden’s June 6 appearance at D-Day anniversary ceremonies in Normandy, France, his June 10 appearance at a White House Juneteenth concert, and his June 15 appearance at a celebrity-filled Hollywood fundraiser.
In the D-Day matter, Biden seemed to wander away from a group of leaders watching a skydiving exhibition. There is no doubt he seemed a bit disconnected, but on the other hand, there were skydivers landing all around the group, and Biden appeared to be interested in greeting some of them who were a little removed from the leaders’ group. So maybe that is all Biden was doing, in his slow and somewhat out-of-it way. The other leaders gently corralled Biden back to the group and it was over. Perhaps there wasn’t really much to the episode, regardless of what the Republican National Committee said.
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The Juneteenth appearance was a different matter altogether. The event was a mixture of concert and pep rally, and Biden was scheduled to join the crowd to watch some performances and deliver brief remarks. As he often does, Biden badly garbled part of his speech. But the truly concerning thing happened when he was watching the concert.
Singer Kirk Franklin was onstage. Biden was in the front row, standing with Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband, Douglas Emhoff, on one side and Philonise Floyd, the brother of George Floyd, on the other. There was a lot of motion. People were swaying and clapping and gesturing and in some cases singing along with Franklin. But Biden stood perfectly motionless, his eyes seemingly fixed on some distant point. His hands hung motionless by his side. He had what appeared to be a frozen smile.
You really should watch what happened. This is an Associated Press video of the event, as far as I know unedited and unmanipulated in any way. The Biden segment is between roughly 18:20 and 21:00. Biden occasionally turned his head a little, and Philonise Floyd engaged him briefly, and then Biden resumed staring. More than 2 1/2 minutes is a very long, very uncomfortable time for something like that to go on. There was clearly some sort of problem with the president.
It is not possible to explain away what happened. Nevertheless, NBC News tried in an article headlined “Misleading GOP videos of Biden are going viral. The fact-checks have trouble keeping up.” About the Juneteenth event, NBC wrote, “The RNC’s opposition research account suggested Biden was having a medical incident because he was not dancing at a Juneteenth event, though Biden has long said he is not much of a dancer and barely danced at his inaugural ball in 2021.”
That is not a reasonable explanation for what happened. It was not a misleading video. The Republican Party did not create it. Biden was not just “not dancing.” Something was going wrong with the president, and it makes no sense to pretend that it wasn’t.
The third and final Biden event was the Hollywood fundraiser. It has received much attention, so you might have seen it. At the end of the event, at which Biden had spoken weakly, the president, comedian Jimmy Kimmel, and former President Barack Obama were standing and waving to the crowd before leaving the stage. Biden seemed to freeze for a moment and then Obama reached out to touch Biden’s wrist. Biden turned around and Obama put his hand on Biden’s shoulder and guided him off the stage.
Since the episode was relatively brief, nowhere near as long as the Juneteenth matter, there has been speculation that Biden had not really frozen. Perhaps Obama reached out too soon and was overly controlling when he guided Biden offstage. On the other hand, perhaps Obama had seen the Juneteenth video and wanted to prevent it happening again. In any event, the White House pushed back at anyone who suggested there might have been a problem.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates denounced the New York Post for reporting the incident at all. An adviser to Obama said flatly, “This did not happen.” Then another White House spokesperson, Karine Jean-Pierre, cited the Obama adviser: “He said this did not happen.”
Whatever the White House said, it is a fact that Obama prompted Biden and guided him off the stage. That did happen. But give Biden the benefit of the doubt. Maybe Obama was just being friendly. And maybe the D-Day thing was nothing too.
But no one can explain away the Juneteenth situation. It just happened. And the fact that it happened lends credence to the idea that Biden also had a problem, in a less serious way, on D-Day and in Hollywood. Just watch the Juneteenth video and see if you can say, “This did not happen.”
One thing is certain: If the Juneteenth event showed some sort of problem with the president, it will happen again. The White House will not be able to say “This did not happen” whenever something does indeed happen.
