President Joe Biden on Tuesday gave two little boys money for ice cream and advised young men to marry into a family that has five daughters so that “one of them will always love you.”
As Biden spoke about his leg achievements during a stop in New Hampshire, he struggled to talk up the PACT Act, his legislation that helped provide funding for veterans suffering from exposure to toxic burns and other chemicals.
He also had some bizarre advice.
“I say to any young man who is thinking of getting married: marry into a family with five or more daughters,” he noted. “One of them will always love you.”
Biden’s wife Jill Tracy Biden is the eldest of five sisters. Her sisters have joined her at White House events, such as when she donated her inaugural dress to the Smithsonian Museum.
After his speech, Biden went to talk to the crowd. He gave seven-year-old Jack Brown and five-year-old Carter Brown money for ice cream.
The president likes ice cream. It’s his favorite dessert.
President Joe Biden gives ice money to Jack Brown, 7, and Carter Brown, 5, as he meets them and their veteran mother Megan Brown, with her daughter Madeline Brown, 3
Meanwhile, Biden announced Tuesday that more than 1 million veterans have been treated under a new law targeting those who suffered from toxic burn exposure during their service.
The visit is part of Biden’s push to sell his legislative achievements to the American people as he seeks another term in the White House.
Biden’s late son Beau was exposed to toxic burns during his military service in Iraq.
Biden has long said he believes there may be a connection to the burns Beau was stationed near and his illness. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015.
Eighty-six percent of post-9/11 veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan say they have been exposed to burns, according to a 2020 survey by the nonprofit Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
In 2022, Biden signed the Pact Act into law, expanding federal health care services for millions of veterans who served on military bases where toxic smoke poured from massive “burn pits.”
More than 5.4 million veterans have received free screenings for toxic exposures from VA under the PACT Act, the White House said, calling it “a critical step to detect and treat potentially life-threatening health conditions as early as possible .’
That amounts to approximately 888,000 veterans and survivors in all 50 states who have been able to receive disability benefits under the law.
Joe Biden has said he believes there could be a link to the burn pits where Beau Biden was stationed near Iraq and his brain cancer, Beau died in 2015 – over then-Vice President Joe Biden with Beau Biden in Iraq in July 2009
First Lady Jill Biden, center, her daughter Ashley Biden, left, and her sister Bonny Jacobs visit the Pyramids of Giza, near Cairo
Joe and Jill Biden married in June 1977
That amounts to about $5.7 billion in benefits for veterans and their survivors, according to the government.
The law ended a years-long battle to ensure treatment for chronic diseases that veterans have blamed on burn pits, which were used to dump chemicals, tires, plastics, medical equipment and human waste on military bases. Estimates of the number of troops affected are as high as 3.5 million.
But before the PACT Act became law, the Department of Veterans Affairs denied 70% of disability claims involving burn exposure. Now the law requires the VA to presume that certain respiratory diseases and cancer are linked to burns or other toxic exposures without the veterans having to prove the link.
Comedian Jon Stewart was among those who advocated for the legislation.
“I’m not sure I’ve ever seen this situation where people who have already given so much had to fight so hard to get so little,” he said when the bill was finally passed. “I hope we’ve learned a lesson.”
A waste incinerator pit at Forward Operating Base Caferetta Nawzad, Helmand Province south of Kabul, Afghanistan in 2011
Solides Burns Waste in Afghanistan in 2012 – Eighty-six percent of post-9/11 veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan say they were exposed to burn pits
The U.S. military in both Afghanistan and Iraq disposed of trash and waste into open-air incinerators that many believe poisoned veterans with toxins in the smoke.
Beau Biden served in Iraq as a member of the Delaware National Guard.
President Biden has blamed the pit fires for the impact on troops.
“I spent a fair amount of time there as a United States Senator and as Vice President. The burn pits and incineration waste of war, medical and hazardous materials, jet fuel and much more, were simply dug in large pits not far from the hoches, not far from where our veterans slept. When our troops came home, the strongest among them, the greatest fighting force in the history of the world, too many of them were not the same, headaches, dizziness, numbness, vertigo, cancer,” Biden said during his visit to Texas.
Experts are less definitive about the link between incinerator emissions and long-term medical conditions.