President Joe Biden is under fire for joking about ice cream while giving a speech regarding the recent school shooting in Nashville, Tennessee.
This comes after 28-year-old Audrey Hale gunned down three children and three staff members at the Covenant School on Monday.
Later that day, Biden gave an address regarding the massacre, but instead of showing sympathy to the victims, the president turned his speech into an ode to his love of ice cream.
BREAKING: Outrage after President @JoeBiden said this at the start of his speech while children and adults were massacred in Nashville shooting, "My name is Joe Biden. I’m dr. Jill Biden’s husband. I like ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate… pic.twitter.com/Wa7nFApjMu
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) March 27, 2023
“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband. I like ice cream, chocolate chip. I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream. By the way, I have a refrigerator full upstairs,” he said to laughter in front of the White House press corps.
He then used the incident to reiterate his rhetoric against the 2nd Amendment, calling for an “assault weapons” ban.
“It’s sick. We have to do more to stop gun violence. These children, these teachers, we should be focusing on their mental health as well,” Biden said.
This isn’t the first time the president has been insensitive to someone’s death. Last month, a mother in Michigan slammed Biden for laughing at the fentanyl deaths of her two sons.
Rebecca Kiessling, whose sons Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18, died in July 2020 after taking fentanyl-laced Percocet pills.
Biden laughed while sharing the tragic story of Kiessling’s sons during the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Baltimore late last month.
“The interesting thing is that fentanyl the boys took came during the last administration,” the president said with a laugh, noting that the boys died a few months before he took office in 2021. “Look, folks, anyway, I don’t want to get started.”
Shortly after Biden’s speech, Kiessling released a video condemning the president’s comments, demanding he apologize and “show some serious concern for the lives lost.”
“I’m shocked to see the video today, as President Biden talked about a congresswoman who misspoke when she said that my children’s deaths are the cause of President Biden’s policy failures,” she said.
“As President Biden was speaking about this mother who lost her two sons, he starts to laugh… This is how you speak about the death of my sons? Because a congresswoman misspoke? You mock the loss of my sons? How dare you. What is the matter with you?” she continued.
