President Joe Biden had a senior moment at a campaign reception in Manhattan Wednesday when he repeated statements about the 2017 Charlottesville riot and his decision to run for president in 2020 minutes apart and nearly word-for-word.<\/p>\n
The White House pool report described it: \u201cPOTUS began speaking at 4:09 pm. His remarks were given in a well-appointed living room after an introduction by the event\u2019s host, Amy Goldman Fowler. About two dozen people were in attendance.<\/p>\n
After briefly touting his economic record, POTUS reflected on his decision to seek the presidency. He told the story about the events of Charlottesville in 2017 as the reason for his campaign.\u00a0 A few minutes later, he told the story again, nearly word for word.<\/p>\n
According to The White House Transcript Biden said:<\/p>\n
\u201cBut then along came, in August of 2017, Charlottesville, Virginia.\u00a0 You remember those folks walking out of the fields literally carrying torches, with Nazi swastikas, holding them forward, singing the same vicious, anti-Semitic bile \u2014 the same exact bile \u2014 bile that was sung in \u2014 in Germany in the early \u201830s.\u00a0 And a young woman was killed.\u00a0 A young woman was killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd this was \u2014 and I re- \u2014 you may remember it.\u00a0 There was a consequential piece of business going on.\u00a0 And the former guy was asked, \u201cWhat do you think would happen?\u201d\u00a0 He was the sitting president.\u00a0 And he said, \u201cI thought there were some very fine people on both sides.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I mean this sincerely, from the bottom of my heart, that\u2019s when I decided I \u2014 I was going to run again.<\/p>\n
Biden kept talking about his family before inexplicably repeating the story:<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, you may remember that, you know, those folks from Charlottesville, as they came out of the fields and carrying those swastikas, and remember the ones with the torches and the Ku \u2014 accompanied by the Ku Klux Klan.\u00a0 And in addition to that, they had \u2014 there were white supremacists.\u00a0 Anyway, they were making the big case about how terrible this was.\u00a0 And a young woman was killed in the process.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd my predecessor, as I said, was asked what he thought.\u00a0 He said, \u201cThere are some very fine people on both sides.\u201d\u00a0 Well, that kept ringing in my head.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so, I couldn\u2019t, quite frankly, remain silent any longer.\u00a0 So, I decided I would run.\u00a0 And it became \u2014 I ran because I thought everything this country stood for was up for grabs for the first time in my career,\u201d the transcript\u00a0said.<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n