Trump Crosses Another Line

(RepublicanNews.org) – Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump appeared to make fun of President Joe Biden’s stammer while impersonating him at a rally in Georgia on March 9th. Trump brought up the subject of Biden’s recent State of the Union speech, sarcastically suggesting that it served to bring the country together. As he did so, he appeared to fake a stutter on the word “together,” an affectation that has drawn accusations of bullying behavior from critics.

Former Obama advisor, David Axelrod, took to social media to express his disdain for Trump’s Biden impression, calling it “pathetic and small” and not the behavior of a mature adult. His verdict has been echoed by some who suffer with a stammer, and who feel that it is an unfair target for derision. One individual said that watching the clip brought up feelings of humiliation, while another said that it recalled memories of his childhood bullies.

A spokesman for Pres. Biden, T.J. Ducklo, was more dismissive of Trump’s remarks. He turned the mockery back on the former president, saying that it simply showed Trump’s own weakness. Trump’s spokesman, Steven Cheung, claimed that Trump was not poking fun at Biden’s stammer and that this part of his rally had been misinterpreted. Cheung stated that Trump was instead pointing to “Crooked Joe’s” diminishing mental faculties, referring to ongoing questions raised by Trump and others about the cognitive capabilities of the 81-year-old who looks set to run for another presidential term.

Biden has made numerous public gaffes, ranging from showing confusion at how to leave a stage, to mixing up the current president of France with one who had died nearly 20 years prior. These missteps have caused some to cast doubt on his mental capacity, including Trump’s former GOP rival Nikki Haley, who repeatedly argued that Biden should be made to take a cognitive assessment.

Trump, famed for his sarcastic and sometimes insulting remarks on stage, has been accused of mocking a person’s disability in the past. During his 2015 presidential campaign, he mocked a reporter by moving his arms jerkily in a manner reminiscent of arthrogryposis, a condition that limits joint mobility. Trump responded to the backlash at the time by claiming that he did not know who the reporter was, or that he had arthrogryposis.