The blunders came thick and fast last weekend when President Joe Biden launched an initiative on gun violence, claiming he had been at “every mass shooting.”
The bizarre comment came days after he falsely claimed to have visited Ground Zero the day after September 11, leaving many wondering if he is lying or forgetting something.
Speaking to Vice President Kamala Harris in the White House Rose Garden, he said his administration had “worked relentlessly to do something.”
“After every mass shooting we hear a simple message, the same message is heard across the country, and I have been to every mass shooting,” he told his audience.
There have been more than 500 mass shootings in the US so far this year, and critics on social media responded with a scathing response to the latest tall tale.
The president claimed to have “been at every mass shooting” as he launched a gun control initiative with 26-year-old Maxwell Frost, the youngest member of Congress, on Friday.
Speaking to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday evening, he said: “Two of the great artists of our time who represent the groundbreaking legacy of hip-hop in America, LL Jay Cool J, uhhh….”
“Suspicious, if true,” former US diplomat Alberto Fernandez tweeted.
“Every weekend should therefore be spent in Chicago instead of Delaware,” said Fox News contributor Joe Concha.
‘Wow! He was at ground zero the day after September 11th, he fully understands the devastation of the Maui fires from his experience with a kitchen fire, his son died in combat, and now he’s been at every mass shooting?” wrote Cynthia Lynn.
The president managed to irritate guests with a speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday night, when he mangled rapper LL Cool J’s name and instead called him “LL Jay Cool J, uhhh…” before settling for ‘boy’. .
Friday’s Rose Garden speech came within minutes of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre being asked to explain why the president had told the same anecdote twice about why he was running for president, in front of an audience of fundraisers.
According to a White House pool report on the private event, he began speaking in a living room to about 20 people just after 4 p.m.
Biden discussed his economic record, reflected on his decision to run for president and “talked about the events in Charlottesville” as a reason for his campaign, the report said.
“A few minutes later he retold the story, almost word for word,” the report continued.
Critics were quick to pounce, but were divided over whether the president is making up stories or simply can’t remember what he did
“It is important to note that the president spoke from his heart,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.
“I will not comment on comments made at a campaign event.”
The president joked about his age as he hosted the Rose Garden event along with the VP and youngest member of Congress, 26-year-old House member Maxwell Frost.
“I remember when I was young,” he told Frost.
‘We have something in common. I was elected to the Senate when I was 29 years old… that was 827 years ago, but it took a while.”
The president is known to have visited the aftermath of several mass shootings, including one in January this year at a dance studio in Monterey Park, California, and a massacre at a supermarket in Buffalo, Colorado in May.
He also visited Uvalde, Texas, that month, where 19 students were shot dead at Robb Elementary School.
But so far this year, there have been 514 mass shootings — defined as shootings in which at least four people were shot — on U.S. soil.
The new White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention will be led by Harris and will seek to help reduce gun violence by “centralizing, accelerating and intensifying” efforts to combat it.
“I have decided to send a clear message about how important this issue is to me and to the country,” he told his audience, which included survivors of mass shootings.
“We all want our children to have the freedom to learn to read and write instead of ducking away, for God’s sake,” he added.
He touted a bipartisan gun safety measure he signed into law while acknowledging changes that remain stalled amid opposition in Congress, including entrenched Republicans in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
He called for the repeal of the expired ban on assault weapons.
“If you need 80 rounds in a magazine, you shouldn’t own a gun,” Biden said.
Biden spoke about student movements like the one sparked by the mass shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
He quoted students who he said “have spoken to an entire generation of Americans who will not be ignored, who will not be shunned and who will not be silent.”
LL Cool J and MC Lyte received Phoenix Awards for their musical contributions at the annual ceremony in Washington DC
Gun control activist David Hogg, who survived the Parkland shooting, told DailyMail.com after the event that Biden spoke to the broad effort to bring in Frost.
“It’s about showing that this is an intergenerational coalition,” he said.
“The fact that President Biden was kind of making fun of the elephant in the room, you know, talking about him being older. But he did start when he was 29.
‘Let’s talk about what comes with age: experience. “There is a reason he has been the most effective president in our lifetimes, and that is because he has decades of experience in the Senate and across government,” he said.