Biden Sees Dead People

US President Joe Biden asked if a congresswoman who died last month was in the room at a White House food insecurity conference on Wednesday. The late Rep. Jackie Walorski died in a car crash that also claimed the lives of two of her staffers, and made headlines this August – prompting a personal note of condolence from the Bidens.

This isn’t the first time that Biden’s made himself look bad on camera, and we can expect that it won’t be the last either. The president’s got a long history of bungling names, forgetting how to spell monosyllabic words, and mislabeling members of his cabinet.

It wouldn’t be a huge stretch of the imagination to suggest that he’s seeing things, or in this case, seeing ghosts.

That’s what it seemed like on Wednesday at the White House’s first hunger conference since 1969, when Biden called out for the late Republican Rep. Jackie Walorski, who co-sponsored the bill establishing the conference – much to the confusion of the crowd.

“I want to thank all of you here for including bipartisan elected officials like Rep. [Jim] McGovern, Sen. [Mike] Braun, Sen. [Cory] Booker, Representative – Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? I think she wasn’t going to be here – to help make this a reality,” Biden said.

Biden had issued a statement upon Walorski’s death that expressed “shock” and “sadness” at the congresswoman’s death, which was just over a month ago.

As is their duty, White House representatives jumped through many rhetorical hoops to try and explain away the gaffe to curious reporters, saying merely that Walorski “was top of mind for the president” before pirouetting towards other topical matters.