Conservatives are going after President Joe Biden for suggesting that he was raised in a Puerto Rican community in Delaware.
“We have a very, in relative terms, a large Puerto Rican population in Delaware relative to our population,” Mr Biden said in Ponce on the southern coast of the island on Monday, where he travelled to survey the damage done by Hurricane Fiona. “We have the eighth-largest Black population of the country and between all minorities, we have 20 per cent of our state [that] is minority. And so I was sort of raised in the Puerto Rican community at home, politically.”
“He used to drive an 18-wheeler. He got his start at a Delaware Historically Black College. He was arrested in South Africa. I can’t wait for his speech to NASA when he talks about his days as an astronaut,” former White House press secretary for President George W Bush, Ari Fleisher, tweeted on Tuesday morning.
Federalist editor Mollie Hemingway simply wrote: “Hoo boy”.
“Hard to keep up with this guy,” journalist Miranda Devine added.
“Just Biden out here trying to tell Puerto Ricans that he’s Puerto Rican too,” former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Trump administration Monica Crowly tweeted.
“This just gets more and more embarrassing for our country,” former Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis added.
“Someone should compile all of Biden’s fake childhood stories and turn them into a unofficial biography. I’d love to read about a catholic boy from Scranton, who went to [school] and came home to Puerto Rican politics while fighting corn pop,” one Twitter user said.
“He was in the Sharks, the roughest toughest Puerto Rican street gang in Scranton, and single handedly won the big dance-off vs the Jets,” David Burge added. “When Pepaw goes full Anecdote Mode, just sit back, crack a cold one, and settle in for some first class entertainment.”
“It took Joe Biden less than 2 years to go from ‘you ain’t black’ to ‘I’m basically Puerto Rican’,” another Twitter user said.
During his visit, Mr Biden announced $60m of investments in flood protections for Puerto Rico. More than 100,000 residents still have no power.
“Imagine being without water and with [the recent] heat wave, it’s torture – people buying water, people charging their phones at the mall and getting some AC ... waiting in two-hour lines, five-hour lines to get some gas,” college student Sadellys Ayuso told Axios.
He recalled the island being battered by Hurricane Maria, which killed 4,645 people after making landfall in September 2017.
“It feels pretty close to what we’ve gone through [with] Maria – like PTSD,” Mr Ayuso added.
