After dangerous fires swept across Maui, Hawaii, leaving more than 100 people dead and hundreds more missing, President Joe Biden compared the devastation to almost losing his ’67 Corvette in a small kitchen fire.
“I don’t want to compare difficulties, but we have a little sense, Jill and I, of what it’s like to lose a home. Years ago, now 15 years ago, I was in Washington doing ‘Meet the Press.’ It was a sunny Sunday when lighting struck at home, on a little lake that’s outside of our home. Not a lake, a big pond. It hit a wire and came up underneath our home, into the heating ducts, the air conditioning ducts,” Biden said during a visit to the island.
“To make a long story short, I almost lost my wife, my ’67 Corvette,” Biden chuckled, adding, “and my cat. All kidding aside, I watched the firefighters, the way they responded.”
Locals were outraged by Biden’s remarks, including one restaurant owner in Kihei, Maui, who called them “the most despicable thing this president has ever said.”
“How do you compare almost losing your f-cking Corvette to the children burned in their f-cking homes, man?” the restaurant owner told The Daily Signal.
North of Kihei, Kristen Goodwin, a former teacher, vowed never to vote for Biden again in the wake of his comments.
“I’ll vote for Trump. I will never vote for him again,” she said.
Goodwin also criticized Biden’s initial cavalier response to the devastating fires.
“The lack of connection, the lack of real emotion. Is Biden even there? The ‘no comment’ situation—how dare he? He could have said ‘Thoughts and prayers,’ at least. Especially when it’s a historical fire, the largest fire in recent American history, and you said ‘no comment’ then went back to bicycling for hours [His trip to Maui] just seemed like a photo op to me,” she added.
Biden’s comments also sparked fury on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“’I almost lost my wife, my 67 corvette, my cat.’ Joe Biden feels the pain of Lahaina talking about his kitchen fire,” Fox and Friends co-host Will Cain tweeted.
“Kids in Maui were burned alive. So far, this is how Biden responded: went on 2 vacations; said “no comment”; fell asleep at an event honoring victims; compared a small house fire to thousands losing everything; cracked jokes about his corvette and the ground being hot; made it all about himself,” posted Libs of TikTok, a popular X account.
“Entire families are dead — children assumed burned to death — and Joe Biden chuckles about: Almost losing his Corvette in a fire. One of the most horrifying moments in politics I’ve ever seen. Grotesque,” Bryan Dean Wright tweeted.
