‘Gaffe machine’ Biden makes a new one. Do candidate gaffes matter?
WASHINGTON – In a Wednesday fundraising campaign largely attended by Asian American donors and lawmakers, President Joe Biden called three Asian countries, including ally from the United States, Japan and an emerging partner, India.
Biden, who credited immigrants as driving the U.S. economy, later blamed “xenophobia” as the reason the economies of Russia, China, Japan and India were struggling.
Except that India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, whose gross domestic product grew by 8.4% in the last three months of 2023.
Biden, who called himself a “gaffe machine,” was promoting “freedom, America and democracy.”
“You know, one of the reasons our economy is growing is because of you and many others. For what? Because we welcome immigrants,” he said. “We are looking for – the reason – let’s think about it. Why is China experiencing such economic stagnation? Why is Japan having trouble? Why Russia? Why India? Because they are xenophobic.
Preparing the surveys: Find out who’s running for president and compare where they stand on key issues in our Voter’s Guide.
He added: “They don’t want immigrants. Immigrants are what make us strong. »
Biden is not the first politician to blunder.
At a summit in Washington, D.C., last year, former President Donald Trump claimed that Biden would “plunge the world into World War II” and confused Biden with Barack Obama, boasting to the audience that to be ahead of Obama in the 2024 election polls.
Trump called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the leader of Turkey and confused his United Nations ambassador, GOP rival Nikki Haley, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“You know, by the way, they never report the January 6th mob,” Trump said, referring to the 2021 Capitol riot at a rally ahead of this year’s New Hampshire primary. “You know, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley, Nikki Haley… Nikki Haley was in charge of security. We offered him 10,000 people, soldiers, national guards, whatever they want. They refused it.
Trump still won over Haley in the primaries.
While the press and social networks pounce on candidates’ gaffes, do they influence the progress of a campaign? Do candidate gaffes really matter?
In the age of Trump, voters are accustomed to fiery speeches − and rhetorical errors − that would have been considered remarkable a generation ago, said William F. B. O’Reilly, a Republican strategist.
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“Voters are now much more likely to see the big picture and reject everyday mistakes,” he said. “Furthermore, the vast majority of voters already know who they are voting for and almost nothing will change their minds. Consider Trump positing that he shot someone on Fifth Avenue: it turns out he was right.”
Trump told an audience in Iowa in January 2016: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?”
Outlandish or outright false statements are not exclusive to Biden and his billionaire foe.
Former President George W. Bush once condemned the “unjustified and brutal” invasion of Iraq while speaking about Ukraine. (Bush was the one who invaded Iraq in 2003.) In fact, there is a Wikipedia page devoted to “Bushisms” – a repository of his linguistic stumbles.
The age factor
Gaffes are important to the extent that they reinforce a candidate’s weakness, said Melissa DeRosa, a Democratic strategist.
“Trump is as wrong as Biden, but, because of the vulnerabilities related to Biden’s age perception, it hurts him even more when he is wrong because it – rightly or unfairly – reinforces a negative view that resonates with the public.”
According to an ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in February, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president, while 62% think Trump, 77, is too old. The poll was conducted after allegations from special counsel Robert Hur, who called Biden an “older man with a bad memory” and suggested age will continue to be a factor in the 2024 election.
More:How old is Trump? Here’s how old the former president will be on Election Day 2024.
More:How old will Joe Biden be if he is re-elected president in 2024? This table breaks it down.
Voters forgive, forget, ignore
While Biden may have gotten off to a rocky start to marking Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, which is observed in May, for most event attendees this week, the comment barely registered, said Shekar Narasimhan, an organizer of the private fundraiser.
“The way I heard it was contextual. He was contrasting Donald Trump, who wants to deport millions of people, including AAPIs, by saying, ‘Look what happens when you’re xenophobic,'” said Narasimhan, an Indian immigrant and founder of AAPI Victory Fund, a political action committee. .
Biden was “drawing a contrast with other countries that have more closed immigration systems,” he said. “We haven’t heard from any Japanese-Americans or even Indian-Americans who say, ‘Oh, what did he say there?'”
Lumping India in with other economies, he said he did not “understand the comment”.
More:Why does Donald Trump keep calling President Biden “Obama” on the campaign trail?
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “the broader point” Biden was trying to make was that the United States is a “nation of immigrants — it’s in our DNA” .
Where a high-profile gaffe might have hurt a candidate in decades past, it wouldn’t have the same lasting impact, O’Reilly said.
“The news cycle moves so quickly now that another intriguing news nugget invariably comes along to save them,” he said. “If President Biden had called Americans xenophobic, the damage might persist, but in this case, it shouldn’t. There are a lot of more interesting things happening. »
The podcast excerpt:Biden’s gaffes, Trump’s failures: are they a sign of cognitive decline?
Biden’s remarks came just three weeks after the White House hosted Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, with Biden touting the “unbreakable alliance” between the United States and Japan.
The White House hosted Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi for a state visit last summer in an effort to strengthen ties with the country to counterbalance China.
“Our allies and partners know very well how much this president respects them,” Jean-Pierre said. “Obviously we have strong relationships with India and Japan.”
Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist, said gaffes matter when they reinforce a candidate’s existing vulnerabilities.
“When Mitt Romney called 47 percent of the country’s people mockers, it reinforced his image as completely out of touch with reality,” she said.
Contributor: Joey Garrison
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X, formerly Twitter, @SwapnaVenugopal
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