President Biden’s apparent stumbling on comments during a ceremony where he nominated two female officers to the rank of four-star general has raised new concerns about his competence, even prompting one House Republican to suggest he’s the victim of “elderly abuse.”
California Rep. Mike Garcia, a former Navy pilot twice elected in the 25th District north of Los Angeles, said in an interview that he has been worried about Biden since the election campaign, during which the new president sometimes verbally stumbled.
“I’ve been concerned about this since day one,” he told the Washington Examiner’s Larry O’Connor’s Examining Politics podcast.
“I want to thank the former general. I keep calling him general, but my… the guy who runs that outfit over there.”pic.twitter.com/yeOifCp8ct
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 8, 2021
“This, to me, in my opinion, and I mean this as gracefully and tactfully as I can, I think we are seeing nationally one of the most grievous examples of elderly abuse in our nation,” Garcia told O’Connor, who pulled the interview from his daily talk show on Washington’s WMAL.
“This president is not fit for office. I don’t really believe he understands what he’s doing, and he’s got a political machine behind him that’s propping him up, and it scares the hell out of people like me who value our national security,” he added.
The comments from Garcia, considered a cool-headed member, surprised O’Connor, who said, “Garcia is hardly a flame-thrower. And I haven’t heard a congressman lay it out so explicitly like that. It makes you wonder what’s being said when the microphones aren’t on.” Garcia’s comments came at about 16 minutes into the clip below from Tuesday’s radio show.
Garcia was reacting to Biden’s apparent failure to recall the name of his defense secretary and the Pentagon at the end of his nominating ceremony organized to show his recognition of International Women’s Day.
Speaking to the two generals, Air Force Gen. Jacqueline Van Ovost and Army Lt. Gen. Laura Richardson, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the 78-year-old Biden said, “I want to thank you both. And I want to thank Sec- — the former general. I keep calling him ‘General.’ My — the guy who runs that outfit over there. I want to make sure we thank the secretary for all he’s done to try to implement what we’ve just talked about and for recommending these two women for promotion.”
The bumble prompted several negative headlines about the president’s presentation and came as new polling showed that half the nation doesn’t think that he is physically and mentally up to the job of president.
Certainly Garcia feels that way. He told O’Connor, “We’re being led right now by an individual who doesn’t know the name of his own staff members in public. And look, we all make mistakes, so once in a while, we all have gaffes, public speaking gaffes. This is well beyond this, and frankly, it’s sad to watch. It’s dangerous, in my opinion, to our nation, and we do deserve better.”
