Hands up if you’re no longer alive: Biden’s gaffe over dead colleague
US President Joe Biden has publicly sought out Jackie Walorski, an Indiana Congresswoman who died in a car accident in August, during a conference on hunger, seeming to forget that she had passed away.
After weeks of negotiations, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and US President Joe Biden forged a tentative agreement on raising the debt ceiling late on Saturday (Photo: ABC)
Biden thanked other conference organisers, then asked: “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?”
Walorski, a Republican, was one of four Congressional co-sponsors of the bill to fund the conference.
She was killed with two staffers in early August.
Biden moved past the issue without any correction.
After Walorski’s death, the White House issued a statement from Biden that said he and his wife Jill were “shocked and saddened” by her sudden accident.
“Truly an awful and disgraceful blunder,” Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, tweeted in reference to the mistake.
Biden was “acknowledging her incredible work,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about the incident later, adding that Biden had already planned to welcome the congresswoman’s family to the White House for a bill signing on Friday.
“She was on top of mind,” Jean-Pierre said.
