Quote:Joe Biden is in Florida for his brief photo-op meeting with first responders regarding Hurricane Idalia.

But once again, he couldn't manage to get through even that short period without telling some whoppers and pushing his political agenda.

As I reported earlier, he made a weird, snotty comment regarding Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. He was asked about DeSantis saying that he couldn't meet with him because the presidential visit was "very disruptive" -- in other words, he shouldn't be coming while the emergency is still on. Biden shot back at the reporter, "Do you [think it's disruptive]?" DeSantis is still having to deal with the crisis, he doesn't have time for Biden. Meanwhile, Biden is playing political games trying to make up for his failures in dealing with the Maui fire response.

During his remarks in Live Oak, Florida, Biden blamed the hurricane on climate change.

“Nobody can deny the impact of climate crises—at least nobody intelligent can deny the impact of the climate crisis anymore. Just look around, around the nation and the world for that matter,” Biden said while in Live Oak, Fla. “Historic floods, intense droughts, extreme heat, deadly wildfires that have caused serious damage that we’ve never seen before.”

Biden has no evidence this hurricane had anything to do with climate change. Hurricanes have been hitting Florida for centuries, and probably as long as it has existed; they're weather events. While there isn't an official cause of the fire determined yet in Maui, Maui County just sued Hawaiian Electric for negligence, blaming their maintenance of the poles and electrical lines as well as their failure to shut off the power during the incident.

Biden also had this strange setup where he stood at a distance from the locals. I don't know what the reason was for that, and I hope they weren't trying to go back to some social distancing nonsense in the middle of a disaster.

It didn't look like a natural exchange between a caring leader and first responders/victims. It looked like they were paying homage to him yet weren't allowed to get close to him. It also looked like there were very few people there. You could see Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) there. He thanked Biden for showing up.

Biden went there to get these kinds of photo-ops where he can say how much he's done.

But unfortunately, with Biden, he indulged in his habit of not being truthful again. Not a great idea when you're visiting hard-hit Americans. Not only shouldn't you be telling them whoppers, but if they hear you saying things that aren't true, they will probably not believe you when you say you're going to come through for them. And he got called out on another past failure. A reporter asked him when he would be visiting East Palestine, Ohio -- the site of a train derailment disaster in February. Biden said many months ago that he was going to visit there, but he has not.

Biden said he "hasn't had the occasion" to go to East Palestine because "there's a lot going on," and he hasn't "been able to break." He said he considered going to East Palestine this week "but then was reminded I've got to go literally around the world" to Asia next week.

This is just straight-up nonsense, and anyone listening can know it's bunk. He's had since February to go. He's been on numerous vacations since then—40 percent of his time in office has been on vacation. He was on vacation for the better part of August. So this is some kind of nonsensical malarkey. This is yet again another example of how he just doesn't give a darn unless he has to politically, and then he makes things up. Does anyone truly think he intended to go, or was that just a way to put off the reporter's question? He's had months, and he failed.

Quote:Residents of East Palestine are responding harshly after President Joe Biden claimed his schedule was too busy to visit the area as promised. The small community in Ohio was the site of a devastating chemical spill and explosion in February that captivated the nation. Yet, eight months later, despite promising to make a trip there early on, the president has still not followed through.

As RedState reported, Biden was asked about East Palestine while touring hurricane damage in Florida. He responded by claiming he hasn't "been able to break" because "there's a lot going on." He then mentioned an upcoming trip to Asia as being more important.

None of the excuses the president made add up. Biden spent most of August on three different vacations, including staying at a billionaire donor's house in Lake Tahoe. He has spent right around 40 percent of his presidency not working, with much of it spent in Delaware. The idea that he hasn't had a few hours to take the short fight over to East Palestine is laughable. It's flatly untrue.

That's not lost on the residents of the town, some of whom appeared on Fox News to discuss Biden's comments.

“At this point, I don’t even care if Biden comes, he has already insulted us,” East Palestine resident Jamie Wallace told “Fox and Friends” guest host Nicole Saphier.

“We are here, we are still sick. We do have unmet needs. We need to have representation at this hearing that’s coming up in East Palestine when our politicians they come in they meet with very cherry-picked groupings of the community and it’s not representative of most of us that are still suffering, still in hotels, still relocated,” Wallace said. “I don’t care. This is not a red issue, it’s not a blue issue. This is an issue of human lives and it can happen to every single person watching this that has a railroad track within 30 miles. You know, this is about human lives.”

Another resident described how she's still living in a hotel with her children, criticizing Biden for showing no compassion at all about the situation.

“This guy has actively not shown any compassion or moral value to anything, emotionally, physically, he hasn’t shown up and there has been no help for us economically or with our residents,” East Palestine resident D.J. Yokley said. “It’s really frustrating to see him go and say he is too busy for people that literally put him in the office.”

East Palestine resident Courtney Miller said she and her kids have been living in a motel since the derailment. “I don’t want to take my kids into something that obviously Biden doesn’t even want to show up,” Miller told Saphier. “So, there’s obviously some reason as to why he is not coming.”

Whatever Biden's strategy is here, assuming one even exists, it's a really bad one. Why promise to go if there was never any intention of going? The easiest thing in the world would have been to make an appearance relatively soon after the disaster occurred. Instead, the president and his team continue to insult the intelligence of those who are suffering, up to and including joking that going to Vietnam is more important.

In the end, one can't help but come to the conclusion that Biden isn't going because he fears the optics. East Palestine is a majority-Republican area. Apparently, not voting for the "right" person dictates whether the White House cares about you as an American or not. It's a sad development, and the residents are correct that if Biden does finally show up, it will only appear contrived and forced. The damage is already done.