Vice President Joe Biden has already landed in hot water with some New Yorkers for comparing LaGuardia Airport to a “third-world country.” But he could not resist poking fun at the state of the terminals there again on Tuesday.
“There were a group of eight LaGuardia airport workers lined up — they all wanted to shake my hand and say, ‘Thank you for telling the truth,’” Biden said at a Washington Post forum, recounting the fallout from his description of the New York facility.
Earlier this year, Biden made clear where he stood on LaGuardia’s notoriously lacking upgrades.
“If I blindfolded someone and took them at 2 o’clock in the morning into the airport in Hong Kong and said, ‘Where do you think you are?’ “They would say, ‘This must be America. This is a modern airport,’” he said in February. “If I took them blindfolded and took them to LaGuardia Airport in New York, he would [be] like, ‘I must be in some third-world country.’ I’m not joking.”
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, among others, responded by calling Biden’s comments inappropriate.
Months later, Biden is still no fan of LaGuardia.
“My Air Force Two crew said, ‘Uh-oh,’” Biden said Tuesday of his team’s response to landing at LaGuardia, at one point calling it the worst airport in the world — before clarifying that it was “at least” the worst in the U.S.
Biden used LaGuardia as a prime example of why U.S. leaders need to devote more dollars to infrastructure spending.
“Our problem isn’t the workforce,” Biden added of LaGuardia. “It’s the physical structure. It’s ridiculous.”
