Former President Joe Biden made a rare public appearance on Friday, where he struggled through his speech, as has often been the case over the past couple of years. Biden declared that “we’re the United States of Amerigotit” in his latest verbal gaffe during a speech before the International LGBTQ+ Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C.
“All of us are dismayed by the present state of the union,” he added. “This is no time to give up. It’s time to get up. Get up and fight back. Get up. Continue to fight. And what’s the fight all about? … it’s about protecting the Constitution. It’s about protecting the Constitution.”
The former president further accused President Donald Trump and his supporters of attempting to “distort and derail our fight for equality” and “further divide the country,” according to a report from Fox News.
“They’re trying to turn it into something scary, something sinister. But folks, it’s really not about anything that’s all that complicated. At its core, it’s about making every American given the opportunity to be treated with basic decency, dignity, and respect they all deserve. That’s what every single American deserves, every American,” he said.
Last week, Biden made headlines again when members of the Trump administration criticized the former president for failing to make any progress on the Jan. 6 pipe bombing case.
FBI Director Kash Patel criticized the bureau’s lack of progress on the long-running investigation into the 2021 DNC and RNC pipe bomb case on Thursday, saying it reflected “sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence” by the FBI under the Biden administration.
His remarks come after authorities arrested Brian Cole Jr., 30, of Woodbridge, Va., earlier in the day, who is accused of planting pipe bombs outside the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters on Jan. 5, 2021 — the night before the Capitol riot. Cole is scheduled to make his initial appearance in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon to be formally arraigned on the charges, the New York Post reported.
“The prior administration sat on the evidence for four years,” Patel told “Fox News at Night” Thursday evening. “There wasn’t any production of new evidence from five years ago.”
“Here’s what we did — we went out to the country, brought in our experts, and Deputy Director [Dan] Bongino led the charge and said, ‘We are going to look at every single piece of evidence again,’” he added.
According to a probable cause affidavit, investigators relied on bank records and cellphone data to connect Cole to the manufacture and placement of the pipe bombs outside the Democratic and Republican party headquarters in Washington’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. Authorities say the activity traced back to 2019.
“We looked at three million lines of evidence,” Patel told host Trace Gallagher. “We went back and looked at the cell phone tower data dumps. We went back and looked at the providers and what information they provided pursuant to search warrants at the time and asked questions, such as ‘Why weren’t all the phone numbers scrubbed?’ and ‘Why weren’t they connected?’ and ‘Why wasn’t there any geolocational data done?’
“Now that is either sheer incompetence or complete intentional negligence, neither of which is acceptable for this FBI. So, we changed that in the prior eight months, not on just this case, but everyone. And what that did was allow us to narrow the search down,” he added.
