Joe Biden Rightfully Took Sarah Huckabee Sanders to Task for Mocking His Stutter During Last Night’s Debate

During last night’s Democratic presidential debate, Sarah Huckabee Sanders sent out a cruel tweet mocking Joe Biden’s speech patterns.

Biden was talking about how he frequently gives out his personal phone number to people he meets along the campaign trail, including one child who Biden says told him–in his words, imitating the boy’s stutter–”I-I-I can’t talk. Wh-wh-what do I do?”

“I have scores of these young women and men who I keep in contact with,” Biden said.

Here’s the moment at last night’s #DemDebate where Joe Biden, who stutters himself, impersonated a kid who stutters who he’s regularly in touch with pic.twitter.com/JDwz1FGulR

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) December 20, 2019

In her now-deleted tweet, Huckabee Sanders, the woman known best for lying professionally for Donald Trump and getting angry over jokes about eyeshadow, tweeted, “I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about.”

Sarah Huckabee Sanders just deleted this tweet. pic.twitter.com/xgkXA37QrV

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) December 20, 2019

Biden wrote back to let Huckabee Sanders know exactly how terrible she was being. “I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter,” he wrote. “And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up.”

Sanders, in turn, apologized for her tweet (and deleted it), saying she should have made her point “respectfully.”

I actually didn’t know that about you and that is commendable. I apologize and should have made my point respectfully. https://t.co/fbmVAqDoWI

— Sarah Huckabee Sanders (@SarahHuckabee) December 20, 2019

I do actually believe that Huckabee Sanders didn’t know Biden’s struggles with his stutter–or at least I believe it’s possible she didn’t. I didn’t know about it until a very personal, profound profile was published in The Atlantic earlier this month.

But even if the former press secretary didn’t know about Biden’s stutter, the tweet was still terrible because it’s still written to mock speech impediments, both in general and specifically that of the child Biden was imitating. That in itself still lacks that empathy Biden mentions.

There are plenty of criticisms to be made about Biden. From his centrist policies to his weird behavior towards women to his fantasies about Republicans realizing the error of their ways as soon as Trump leaves office and suddenly learning to work in harmony with Democrats–there’s no shortage of things to drag Biden over. Mocking a stutter (just like going after someone’s appearance–that thing Huckabee Sanders thought Michelle Wolf did at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that actually never happened but she managed to stir up a lot of manufactured outrage over it anyway!) is not a form of valid political criticism. It just makes you look like an asshole.

now do one for all the lies https://t.co/6aEHEgYpsK

— Timothy Simons (@timothycsimons) December 20, 2019

(image: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images)

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