Over the weekend, most Americans have been talking to each other about the devastation created by the wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui. Joe Biden was not one of them.
I would like to share this tweet that posted yesterday on X (the site formerly known as Twitter) by Justin Sink, the White House correspondent for Bloomberg. Sink was trailing the president to the Delaware resort where he has been spending a great deal of his time this summer. This is what Sink posted:
After a couple hours on the Rehoboth beach, @potus was asked about the rising death toll in Hawaii
“No comment,” he said before heading home pic.twitter.com/Y0UmXirju9
— Justin Sink (@justinsink) August 13, 2023
No comment? The President of the United States has nothing to say over the fact that nearly 100 people on Maui are dead and countless others are still missing as a result of the wildfires? The politician who won approximately two-thirds of the popular vote on Hawaii in the 2020 election cannot be bothered to talk about the thousands who are in emergency shelters because their homes were incinerated? The head of state who promised empathy to the nation doesn’t feel obligated to speak to the American people about the strategy needed to rebuild on Maui?
The devastation that befell Maui is greatest wildfire destruction to impact this country in over a century. The humanitarian crisis that abruptly redefined Maui is the greatest tragedy on that island’s history. And even if one were to just coldly focus on the real estate aspects of the wildfires’ wreckage, the news from Maui regarding the loss of thousands of properties is without precedent.
No comment?
Sink did not invent this scenario – Biden’s answer was confirmed by a video. And his media outlet is Bloomberg, not InfoWars – he is one of the most respected journalists in the White House press corps, not some conspiracy theorist kook.
Biden apologists might try to spin this as an abrupt effort to shut down reporters interrupting his weekend break. After all, this president has repeatedly shown on-the-job contempt for reporters by either turning his back and walking away from them while they try to engage him or by openly insulting them, sometimes with coarse language. If he doesn’t want to deal with the media while at work, why should he while he is at leisure?
Other Biden supporters might want to point to a five-part message from the @POTUS account on X/Twitter. This message stated, “As residents of Hawai’i mourn the loss of life and devastation taking place across their beautiful home, we mourn with them. Like I’ve said, not only our prayers are with those impacted – but every asset we have will be available to them.”
But unlike his predecessor, Biden has no history of X/Twitter messaging. From the phrasing used in the @POTUS account, it is obvious the president is not authoring these messages.
Perhaps not surprisingly, Sink’s posting was lapped up by the conservative media that cannot credit Biden with doing anything right and was not covered by the liberal media which fixates on Biden’s predecessor but has yet to find any flaws in the current administration.
Still, the White House was aware of the damage by the “no comment” comment and it ensured that Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, sang the president’s praises on MSNBC – one of the outlets that didn’t acknowledge the Sink scoop.
“We were honored to have the President jump to it so fast,” Green said. “In six hours, he approved the presidential declaration. It was incredible. Within six hours.”
The notion that Green was “honored” to have the presidential administration doing its job in the wake of an emergency can be addressed at another time. At the moment, the U.S. would benefit from having a leader who is upfront and vocal in assuring the impacted people of Hawaii and Americans as a whole that the tragedy of Maui will be a priority.
That could have occurred today when the president returned to the White House from his weekend at the beach, but he refused to speak to reporters. And don’t expect much interaction from him soon – on Friday, he leaves for a weeklong holiday in Lake Tahoe, his second vacation in a month. There is no word on when he will visit Maui, or even if he would – heck, he never got around to East Palestine, Ohio.
Earlier today, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre tried to convince the attendees of her media briefing that her boss is not the indifferent and elusive Biden seen by the public.
“Look, this is something that the president is clearly deeply concerned about,” she claimed.
Uh, no comment.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo via the White House
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