Former Vice President Joe Biden got shutdown on Tuesday when attempting to brag about the size of the crowds his campaign was drawing in Iowa.
Biden, who returned to the campaign trail this week after being waylaid by a string of gaffes, told voters during an event in the early caucus state he was not worried about the crowds his more liberal opponents were drawing.
“What I’m trying to do is go around from town to town. And I’m drawing as big of crowds — bigger than anybody,” he said. “Have you seen anybody draw bigger crowds than me here in this state?”
Biden’s attempt at bravado, however, fell flat, with individuals in the crowd retorting “yes” to his question.
The embarrassing moment comes as Biden has seen his support plummet in Iowa since the start of his campaign. Compounding problems is that every time Biden travels to the state, his efforts are overshadowed by a new gaffe or incident.
Earlier this month when embarking on a week-long tour of the state, Biden made a series of verbal missteps that not only shocked his allies, but also cast doubt on his fitness for the presidency.
The former vice president’s troubles began innocently enough during a stump speech at the Iowa State Fair, where Biden confusingly told voters that “we choose truth over facts,” and they grew with intensity throughout the day. It eventually culminated in the former vice president making a racially insensitive remark while discussing his plans to reform education.
“We should challenge these students, we should challenge students in these schools to have advanced placement programs in these schools,” the former vice president said. “We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”
Although the gaffe was widely panned, with President Donald Trump even mocking Biden for not “playing with a full deck,” it was a statement the former vice president made later in the weekend that raised the most concern.
“Those kids in Parkland came up to see me when I was vice president,” Biden told a group of reporters Saturday afternoon, before claiming that when the survivors visited Congress, lawmakers were “basically cowering, not wanting to see them. They did not want to face it on camera.”
The statement left many stunned and perplexed, as the tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which resulted in 17 fatalities and over a dozen injuries, occurred on February 14, 2018 – more than one year after Biden left the White House.
After that incident, Biden disappeared from the campaign trail – something he likewise did in June after coming under fire for flip-flopping on abortion – under the guise of taking a family vacation.
When Biden did remerge a week later, the damage was already done. A recent poll from out of the state, conducted during the height of the gaffes, found Biden tied for second place with Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT). Both men, though, trailed Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) by double digits.
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