oe Biden has sparked outrage by comparing the Hawaiian blaze that killed at least 114 people to a kitchen fire – and joking about ‘hot ground’ to a rescuer.
The President’s motorcade was met with screams of ‘f*** you’ after he finally arrived in Maui – two weeks after the inferno which left 850 people missing and destroyed the historic city of Lahaina.
Biden compounded the anger in a garbled, meandering speech about the deaths of his wife and daughter in 1972, before comparing the horrific blaze to a kitchen fire at his Delaware home in 2004.
The 80-year-old capped off his disastrous five-hour tour by asking a rescue team whether their boots were reinforced, noting the ‘hot ground’ beneath their feet in a tone-deaf attempt at humor.
Hawaiian residents and politicians have unleashed a torrent of criticism over Biden’s failure to visit the island sooner and a paltry $700 offered to each affected family.
To date Biden has approved $8.2 million in assistance to 2,700 households, according to FEMA.
Republicans were quick to compare that to the $12.1billion in security assistance that has gone to Ukraine so far this year.
The President pledged a further $200million to Kyiv on the same day that people affected by the fires in Hawaii were offered the $700 checks.
Biden’s visit was always going to be contentious – with some bemoaning his decision not to visit earlier and opt to spend time at the beach. Others wanted him to stay away so resources weren’t pulled from search and rescue.
The President was criticized before his visit for failing to give the wildfires sufficient attention, and accused of a sluggish response to the crisis.
Last weekend, when asked as he left the beach in Delaware for his response to the fires, Biden replied: ‘No comment.’
He also appeared to forget the name of Maui, repeatedly referring to fires blazing on ‘the Big Island’.