Over the last three years, we’ve heard a lot about the dangers of questioning election outcomes and election integrity.
One of the main advocates of warning about the dangers of undermining faith in our democratic system and the election is President Joe Biden.
But questions are swirling about how genuine his lectures about safeguarding democracy have been.
On Tuesday, Biden was attending a rally in favor of access to abortion and made a really bizarre statement, so bizarre that it is entirely unclear where it came from.
“Hello, Virginia,” the president said — that’s not the bizarre part of his statement — that came next. He added, “And the real governor, Terry McAuliffe!”
Watch the video below:
His comment was aimed at former — emphasis on former — Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe, who left office in 2018. McAuliffe attempted a return to the governor’s mansion but was defeated by Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R).
Youngkin won by roughly 63,000 votes, which is not exactly a close race. And it was not as though there was a massive effort to reverse the results citing voter fraud in the state.
So it really is not clear why Biden decided to deem the person who was rejected by the voters the “real governor.”
Perhaps it was a poor attempt at a joke.
But several commentators were not so quick to laugh it off:
Youngkin shared the video and wrote, “Mr. President, I’m right here.”
Even if this was a joke, and not Biden doubting the election results or thinking it’s 2014 and he’s the vice president, it’s not a good look.
If you spend years insisting that raising doubts about election results is pretty much the worst thing you can do, making it into a punchline just makes you look insincere about your warnings.