Photo via @JordanUhl/Twitter
March 3, 2022, 2:39 pm
President Joe Biden gave the annual State of the Union Address on Tuesday, which was immediately followed by the annual right-wing scavenger hunt to find anything conceivable in the known universe to attack him over—including a failure to stop the speech to sing “Happy Birthday” to a kid he featured in the address.
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As he was talking about lowering the cost of life-saving drugs, particularly insulin for diabetes patients, he brought up 13-year-old Joshua Davis, who has Type 1 diabetes and has been advocating for better care for kids like him since he was only four.
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“We pay more for the same drug produced by the same company in America than any other country in the world. Just look at insulin. One in ten Americans has diabetes,” said Biden. “In Virginia, I met a 13-year-old boy, the handsome young man standing up there, Joshua Davis.”
“He and his dad both have Type 1 diabetes, which means they need insulin every single day. Insulin costs about $10 a vial to make. That’s what it costs the pharmaceutical company. But drug companies charge families like Joshua and his dad up to 30 times that amount.”
Biden went on to advocate for capping the cost of insulin at $35 per month to make it massively more affordable for average U.S. families. Just before doing so, he mentioned that Joshua’s birthday was the day before and wished him a happy one.
“Joshua is here tonight, but yesterday was his birthday. Happy birthday, buddy, by the way.”
It was a nice moment that culminated in uproarious applause for the incredible teen, but if you ask Fox News commentator Dana Perino and frozen dinner heir Tucker Carlson, it wasn’t nearly enough.
“There was that missed for humanity, right, the president says ‘and it was his birthday yesterday,’” said Perino to Carlson’s scrunched-up face. “Well then, clue. Sing Happy Birthday. That’s what we do, like, have a human moment.”
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Maybe Perino doesn’t realize this, but when you have to get that nitpicky to attack someone, you’re only making them look better. Of course, if Biden had sung Happy Birthday to Joshua, Perino probably would have been aghast at the fact that they didn’t wheel out a birthday cake for him.
Republicans seemed to be itching at the chance to attack Biden’s address, with Representatives Lauren Boebert and Marjorie Taylor Greene unable to even wait until he was done speaking, repeatedly interrupting and heckling him in outbursts that even their fellow Republicans have panned. Republican Senator John Thune deemed the congresswomen’s “antics” to be “inappropriate” for a speech that is supposed to be about bringing the nation together.
“A State of the Union speech, whether you agree with the president or not, it is an opportunity to show the American people the respect that the Office deserves,” he said.
Republican Representative Denver Riggleman, meanwhile, called their heckling “classless” and “an embarrassment to the House” in a tweet.
A valid criticism, especially compared to the Fox News pundits’ lamenting about the lack of birthday songs in the SOTU.
Meanwhile, people are baffled over how the likes of Dana and Tucker manage to take themselves seriously.
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*First Published: March 3, 2022, 2:39 pm
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