President Donald Trump drew laughter from the audience on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday evening as he mocked rival Joe Biden’s “kissing” scandal in his acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention (RNC).
In the wake of the “#metoo” movement that emerged in late 2017, Biden’s lifelong habit of kissing, touching, and sniffing women — particularly younger women — at public events fell under public scrutiny, beyond the conservative media alone.
Many women came forward with complaints. One, Tara Reade, claimed Biden sexually assaulted her in a Senate hallway.
Biden posted a video saying that he was simply a tactile politician, to both men and women, but promised to change.
In his RNC address formally accepting his party’s nomination for re-election as president, Trump sought to contrast Biden’s supposed empathy for working Americans with his actual behavior in Washington. But he added a joke at Biden’s expense:
For 47 years, Joe Biden took the donations of blue collar workers, gave them hugs and even kisses, and told them he felt their pain – and then he flew back to Washington and voted to ship their jobs to China and many other distant lands. Joe Biden spent his entire career outsourcing the dreams of American Workers, offshoring their jobs, opening their borders, and sending their sons and daughters to fight in endless foreign wars.
At “kisses,” the audience burst into laughter, and Trump paused briefly to let the joke sink in before continuing.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). His new book, RED NOVEMBER, tells the story of the 2020 Democratic presidential primary from a conservative perspective. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.