Leading Democratic Party presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday thanked ‘Miracle on the Hudson’ pilot Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger, a Biden supporter, for writing a NY Times op-ed this weekend that attacked President Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump for allegedly mocking Biden’s stuttering. Trump, who sympathetically talked about Biden’s penchant for verbal lapses during a campaign stop in Des Moines, Iowa on Thursday, denied mocking Biden for stuttering, saying that she did not know he had a stutter. Biden himself said last month his lapses on the campaign trail were not due to his childhood stuttering, but that has not stopped Biden and his campaign from orchestrating a hit on Lara Trump and the Trump campaign.
Screen image from Biden interview with Axios, December 8, 2019.
Biden wrote, “Thank you @Captsully for sharing your story. There’s a lot of kids who I bet needed to hear it. Being different isn’t a barrier to success. It can give you the strength to save lives in a crash landing — or even run for President.”
Thank you @Captsully for sharing your story. There’s a lot of kids who I bet needed to hear it.
Being different isn’t a barrier to success. It can give you the strength to save lives in a crash landing — or even run for President. https://t.co/0sYl6VhJyr
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 19, 2020
Headline and excerpt from the Sullunberger article published by the New York Times on Saturday:
Capt. ‘Sully’ Sullenberger: Like Joe Biden, I Once Stuttered, Too. I Dare You to Mock Me.
The retired pilot responds to recent comments from the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on the way the former vice president talks.
As a small boy in Denison, Texas, I remember vividly the anguish of being called on in grade school, knowing that I was going to have a hard time getting the words out; that my words could not keep up with my mind, and they would often come out jumbled. My neck and face would quickly begin to flush a bright red, the searing heat rising all the way to the top of my head; every eye in the room on me; the intense and painful humiliation, and bullying that would follow, all because of my inability to get the words out.
Those feelings came rushing back, when I heard Lara Trump mocking former Vice President Joe Biden at a Trump campaign event, with the very words that caused my childhood agony. “Joe, can you get it out?” Ms. Trump was seen saying onstage, as a few giggles are heard from an otherwise silent audience. “Let’s get the words out, Joe.”
In the interest of full disclosure, I attended a fundraiser last year for the Biden campaign, but this issue goes beyond politics. Regardless of how you feel about Joe Biden, or his chances of becoming the Democratic nominee for president; whether you are a Republican, a Democrat, or none of the above; whether you stuttered as a child or laughed at one who did; whether as a parent you try to protect your own stuttering child from taunts such as those made by the president’s daughter-in-law; these words come without hesitation: Stop. Grow up. Show some decency. People who can’t, have no place in public life.
What might a child who stutters, as I did, feel when they hear a grown-up on a public stage trying to make a bunch of other adults laugh by ridiculing a public figure who also stutters?…
CBS reporter Adam Brewster posted a video clip with a straightforward report on Trump’s comments made at the Des Moines, Iowa campaign stop Thursday evening, “Lara Trump on the Dem field/debate “I feel kind of sad for Joe Biden…I’m supposed to want him to fail at every turn, but every time he comes on stage or they turn to him I’m like ‘Joe can you get it out? Let’s get the words out Joe.’ …The problem is that’s their front runner”
Lara Trump on the Dem field/debate "I feel kind of sad for Joe Biden…I'm supposed to want him to fail at every turn, but every time he comes on stage or they turn to him I'm like 'Joe can you get it out? Let's get the words out Joe.' …The problem is that's their front runner" pic.twitter.com/oJgXRkIHbJ
— Adam Brewster (@adam_brew) January 17, 2020
The media and liberals accused Trump of mocking Biden for stuttering. Trump commented Friday night, denying she knew he had a stutter, “Yet another example of the egregious reporting we see every day in the mainstream media. Anyone who takes 10 seconds to watch what I actually said can clearly see that I never mention a stutter — didn’t even know he had one — but they can’t help themselves”
Yet another example of the egregious reporting we see every day in the mainstream media. Anyone who takes 10 seconds to watch what I actually said can clearly see that I never mention a stutter — didn’t even know he had one — but they can’t help themselves https://t.co/i7oyVR6xlp
— Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) January 18, 2020
Just last month Biden spoke to Axios, saying his speech lapses on the campaign trail are not due to stuttering.
“I don’t think of myself as continuing to stutter. … That doesn’t cross my mind that I’m stuttering,” Biden said. “Look, the mistakes I make are mistakes. And some people think I still stutter. I don’t think of myself that way.”
Sometimes, Biden said, “I’ll find myself searching for a second” to find the words — but “I’ve always attributed that to being tired and not to the stutter.”
