Donald Trump mocked President Joe Biden for his lifelong struggle with a stutter while on the campaign trail.
Biden has openly shared his experience with stuttering to help others who struggle with speech impediments.
“We don’t even talk about what is ‘presidential’ anymore,” friend of Biden Ted Kaufman said. “But if you look at Joe Biden’s reaction and you look at Trump’s reaction, one is presidential and one is not.”
While he says he largely overcame it as a youth, experts noted stutters can reemerge with age and Biden acknowledged still having issues at times.
“He’s been through worse things than that in his life,” Kaufman said of Trump’s mockery.
“President Trump has never mocked Joe Biden’s speech impediment,” Trump adviser Jason Miller stated. “He’s simply called out the fact Biden is a cognitively impaired, low-IQ individual.”
“You can do whatever you want to do,” Biden told 9-year-old Harry Abramson.
“Harry, I’ve struggled with a stutter all of my life. Thank you for telling me about yours, and don’t let anyone tell you it will stop you from achieving your dreams.”
“This is a remarkable shift in language from Biden — by far the closest he’s ever come to saying ‘I still stutter,’” John Hendrickson wrote on X.
“Probably the best thing that’s ever happened to me was one of the worst things,” Biden said. “When I was a kid, I stuttered badly — t-t-t-talk-talk like-like that — … and I used to hate the fact I stuttered.”
Trump has imitated Biden stuttering and claimed he stumbles over words, though videos show Biden did not stutter as Trump depicted.
“Did you see him? He was stuttering through the whole thing,” Trump said regarding a particular speech of Biden’s. “He’s saying I’m a threat to democracy.”
“’He’s a threat to d-d-democracy,’” he added. “Couldn’t read the word.”
“Joe Biden can’t put two sentences together,” Miller said. “It’s not President Trump’s responsibility to diagnose what’s wrong with Biden. He’s simply observing what every other American sees, that Joe Biden is a shell of his former self and unable to lead our country. This weakness has emboldened our adversaries and led to death and destruction at home and abroad.”
Biden has framed overcoming his stutter through practice and therapy as helping fuel his empathy for others.
“It’s a debilitating situation,” Biden said. “And I still occasionally, when I find myself really tired, ca-ca-catch myself saying something like that.”
“There are words that he avoids or substitutes for, and he avoids syllables that he knows will stumble over,” said David Frank, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Oregon.
“He’s like a lot of us confronting our own demons,” Frank said. “If he admits he hasn’t conquered it, he is perceived to be weak. If he says he’s totally overcome it, he’s not being true to himself.”
“Trump thinks mocking people and taking away their rights makes him look strong,” Biden campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo said. “But it just reveals how weak, insecure and vulnerable he is having to face voters who want real leadership.”
“It’s like, how does a guy go from being a stutterer to a guy who makes a career out of speaking?” he added. “Who in history has given more speeches than Joe Biden?”
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