White House explains why Joe Biden sported a Donald Trump hat in bizarre 9/11 gesture

President Joe Biden briefly wore one of former President Donald Trump’s red MAGA hats, in a move the White House said was intended to show “bipartisan unity.”

Biden, Trump and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris attended multiple 9/11 memorial ceremonies on Wednesday, a day after Trump and Harris met for the first time on the debate stage.

While speaking to firefighters in Shanksville, Pennsylvania — where United Flight 93 crashed — Biden was briefly captured wearing a bright red Trump cap.

The moment sparked a storm of protest among Trump’s surrogates and on MAGA social media, who thanked the 81-year-old commander in chief.

Biden’s move came 24 hours after he caused a stir when he left the White House for New York on Tuesday night by saying he would “do 9/11.”

“At the Shanksville Fire Station, President Joe Biden spoke about the bipartisan unity of the country after 9/11 and said we need to get back to that,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said on X. “As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter, who then said POTUS should put on his Trump hat in the same spirit.”

“He only wore it for a short time,” Bates added.

By the time Bates got his message out, Trump’s supporters were claiming the 81-year-old Biden was so “senile” he didn’t realize what the hat said.

‘Attendees tell me Joe Biden looked totally senile at the event, even putting on a red TRUMP 2024 hat while [Harris] ‘was in the room,’ wrote Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist and top Trump ally. ‘One of the attendees asked Biden, ‘Do you even know your name?” she added, a parrot attack on the president that Trump had made on the debate stage Tuesday night.

The Trump War Room X Account shared a video of Biden putting on the hat, writing, “Kamala did so bad at last night’s debate, Joe Biden just put on a Trump hat.”

The reporters who follow the president everywhere were not invited, because Biden and Harris were there to meet with family members affected by the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

Pennsylvania is the state to win in the 2024 election, and with the trip to Shanksville, Harris entered Trump country.

In the broader Somerset County region, 78 percent favored Trump over Biden, with 21 percent against 21 percent.

From the route Harris took, signs of support for the Republican candidate were visible.

Another angle of the video shows the 81-year-old commander in chief wearing his signature red hat as a gesture of “bipartisan unity”

Biden told family members at the firehouse that the US needed to return to the unity shown after the attacks that killed 2,977 people

Biden attends the 23rd anniversary of 9/11 commemoration with Vice President Kamala Harris, former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg, former President Donald Trump and Ohio Senator and vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance

One man attending the ceremony also wore a vulgar anti-Harris T-shirt.

Harris is expected to return to western Pennsylvania on Friday with a campaign stop in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, located in nearby Cambria County.

Cambria County is experiencing one of the most dramatic shifts from Democrats to Republicans in the country.

For many years it was represented by the late Democratic Representative John Murtha.

In 2008, President Barack Obama won the county by a hair: 50 percent, to Sen. John McCain’s 48 percent.

During the 2020 election, support in the county ranged from 68 percent for Trump to 31 percent for Biden.

Trump landed at Johnstown Airport shortly after Biden and Harris visited Shanksville.

The former president also attended a ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City alongside Biden and Harris.

During the service, the widow of a New York firefighter killed on September 11 criticized Biden for his “flippant” comments.

Kamala Harris looks on during the memorial ceremony at Ground Zero, with Biden in the background, the day after her debate with Trump

Joanne Barbara referenced the president saying he would “do 9/11” when asked by reporters about his plans for honoring Americans killed in the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history.

Her husband Gerard “Jerry” Barbara, an assistant fire chief with the FDNY and a firefighter for 31 years, was killed when the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed while he was trying to rescue people trapped inside.

“The elected officials here today pay their respects and honor to the families of September 11th, or, in the words of our President, ‘do 9/11,’ a rather lighthearted remark,” Barbara said during a speech at a ceremony honoring her late husband.

“Remember that the families of the victims of 9/11 go through this every day,” she continued, describing the grief of those who lost loved ones in the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001.

She was also highly critical of the “scandalous” settlement that was nearly approved for the alleged masterminds of the 9/11 attacks who were being held at Guantanamo Bay.