Lara Trump, wife of Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump, mocked former Vice President Joe Biden’s stutter at a “Women for Trump” event in Iowa Thursday night, calling the speech impediment Biden has suffered with since he was a child “sad.”
“I feel kind of sad for Joe Biden, and you know that’s when it’s not going well for him right? Because I’m supposed to want him to fail at every turn, but every time he comes on stage and they turn to him I’m like, ‘Joe can you get it out? Let’s get the words out Joe.'” she said on stage. “You kind of feel bad for him.”
Biden opened up about his stutter last year in an interview with a reporter from the Atlantic who also suffers from the speech impediment. Biden talked about how he spent years trying to overcome his stutter, which he said made him feel “shame” in his youth.
“Anger, rage, humiliation,” Biden told The Atlantic, describing how the stutter made him feel. “A feeling of, uh—like I’m sure you’ve experienced—it just drops out of your chest, just, like, you feel … a void.”
This is not the first time someone in Donald Trump’s orbit has mocked someone with a disability.
Trump himself infamously mimicked a disabled reporter’s hand movements during a campaign rally during the 2016 election.
It’s also not the first time someone in Trump’s orbit mocked Biden for his stutter.
Former White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders made fun of Biden’s stutter during the Dec. 19 debate, tweeting, “I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about.”
Biden responded to Sanders’ mean tweet, saying, “I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up.”
Sanders ultimately deleted her tweet and apologized.
“I actually didn’t know that about you and that is commendable,” Sanders tweeted. “I apologize and should have made my point respectfully.”
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
IMAGE: Photo by DougCoulter [CC BY-SA]
