Like the Media Research Center and Newsmax, WorldNetDaily tried to manufacture right-wing outrage over President Biden purportedly saying “no comment” regarding the Maui wildfires — while censoring the fact that nobody actually heard him say it and the biased reporter who first made the claim, who is employed by the right-wing anti-Biden British newspaper Daily Mail, has said his account was based on the opinion of lip-readers, not anyone hearing the words. James Zumwalt was first up in his Aug. 16 column complaining about the “twit parade” that supposedly appeared after the wildfires:
While departing the beach in Delaware Sunday, Biden was asked by the media about the rising death toll in Maui. His response was, “No comment.” This from presidential candidate Biden who in 2020 claimed, “Empathy matters. Compassion matters. We have to reach out to one another and heal this country – and that’s what I’ll do as president.” Apparently, such empathy and compassion does not apply while one is lounging on the beach.
Of the three twit parade members, much more was to be expected of Biden. He supposedly is the leader we all should be looking up to in dark times.
Editor Joseph Farah weighed in as well in his Aug. 17 column:
A beautiful town in Hawaii left in ruins. At least 100 dead, but the toll will rise considerably as they search for more remains in the rubble and ash.
After three days, when asked about the tragedy, Joe Biden issued the terse and insensitive words: “No comment.” He was laughing when he said it.
I thought of him looking at his watch on the day the last soldiers killed in the Afghanistan debacle were brought home. I also thought about the fact he never even went to comfort the people after the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.
He’s a class act, isn’t he?
Farah added: “Say what you will about Trump, but he deeply loves all the good people of the USA. He put out that statement despite the fact he probably has no chance of winning the deep blue state of Hawaii – ever.”
Barbara Simpson served up her own rant in an Aug. 18 column:
But for me, the reaction of the president to what has happened is a crime in itself. During one of Biden’s contacts with reporters while he was in Delaware, his response to a reporter who asked if he was considering a trip to Maui to see the fire horror, was: “We’re looking at it.”
Gee, that’s consoling. He’s “looking at it.” What does that mean? What warmth and concern for the losses.
Another reporter asked Biden a similar question, as he was on the beach in Delaware. His response: “No comment.”
It also reported that when talking to another reporter about the situation, he seemed not to remember the name of the island and referred to it only as “the one where you see on television all of the time.”
That should give no comfort to Americans who assume their president is kept up to date on what is happening in his country from national security people. Now they know that he gets his information (or lack of it) from television.
God help us.
None of these columnists mentioned the relevant fact that the right-wing reporter making the claim never heard him say those words.
WND also republished articles from elsewhere pushing the same bogus claim:
- Tulsi Gabbard unloads on Biden’s response to Hawaiian fire deaths
- Congress may probe Biden’s Maui response, McCarthy suggests
- Hawaiian business savages Joe Biden for belittling the destruction of Maui
Farah whined further about the purported comment in his Aug. 22 column:
It took Joe Biden two weeks to make it to Hawaii after the devastating wildfires that likely will have killed upwards of 1,000 people as some 850 are still missing.
It was not a good day for him, after he compared the disaster to his own apocryphal kitchen fire in his Delaware home in 2004.
Biden was met with obscene catcalls as his motorcade passed rows of disgruntled residents who had received $700 checks after losing their homes.
You might recall clueless Joe issued only a “no comment” on the tragedy a week earlier. A week after that he forgot he had come to Maui, repeatedly referring the fires as occurring on “the Big Island.”
WND also published an Aug. 23 syndicated column by Ben Shapiro asserting that Biden “is a narcissist, not an empath” that claimed “Biden vacationed in Delaware on the beach, telling reporters he had “no comment” on the situation; he then jet-set off to Lake Tahoe before finally heading to Lahaina.” Neither mentioned that nobody actually heard the words they accuse Biden of saying.