After former President Donald Trump visited a New York bodega and was received by a huge crowd of cheering, adoring supporters, and had much the same thing happen at an Atlanta Chick-fil-A, President Joe Biden’s campaign sent him to a Pennsylvania Wawa, a Delaware-based chain of convenience stores and gas stations, likely in the hope that something similar would happen.
Instead, all that came out of the trip was an extremely embarrassing video showing Biden struggling to do normal things inside the convenience store in a visit that almost entirely lacked the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding Trump’s visits to fast food restaurants.
Particularly, clips of the visit that emerged showed the elderly president struggling to deal with a takeout box he was handed and then shuffling off to order a milkshake. Predictably, his seeming lack of vigor and mental faculties led to rounds of comments on X (formerly Twitter) mocking him and pointing out that such a state of mind could be a problem in the most powerful office in the world.
The visit began with President Biden walking into the Wawa in Philadelphia’s City Center, near the famous Independence Hall, with the Mayor of Philadelphia, Cherelle Parker. Walking up to the counter, Paker ordered a yogurt, and Biden ordered an Italian hoagie with American cheese.
That’s when the embarrassment began. Handed a takeout box for the order, Biden fumbled with it for a bit and failed to manage to close the box before handing it off to a member of the group with him, saying, “You take that box. I’m gonna go order a milkshake.”
He then shuffled off to order a black-white milkshake, and, as numerous commenters online noted, he only ordered one milkshake for himself, unlike former President Trump, who ordered 30 milkshakes, some for him to hand out to members of the adoring crowd and some for members of his staff when he visited the Chick-fil-A in Atlanta.
Watch the awkward visit here:
The RNC Research account on X, an account run by the RNC, posted a video of the awkward, embarrassing incident and said, “Biden struggles to close the takeout box at Wawa, then eventually gives up and tells his handler: ‘You take that box. I’m gonna go order a milkshake.’ Then he shuffles away (before getting confused once again).”
Replying to the post, one commenter claimed that her relative with dementia would, sadly, act in a similarly confused and semi-erratic manner, saying, “My Mom who had Dementia would do the same thing. Stop in the middle of an activity and walk to someplace else that caught her attention.” Another account joked, “Our Toddler in Chief can’t even order a milk shake.”
Adding more drama to the incident was a claim that it was staged. Conservative X personality Jack Posobiec posted a video purporting to show that and, captioning it, said, “BREAKING: Biden’s trip to Wawa today was completely staged. Even the ‘tip’ to the cashier was pre-planned out. And it got caught on tape. How dare Biden disrespect Wawa!”
Watch that video here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video