ARLINGTON COUNTY, VIRGINIA: Vice President Kamala Harris found herself thrust into an unusual controversy after she appeared to grin when President Biden suffered an embarrassing moment and lost his way at the Arlington ceremony.
The 80-year-old POTUS required assistance from an honor guard at the tomb to lay the massive bouquet on a stand that was placed on the square in front of the memorial remembering the nation’s missing and unidentified war dead.
He took a step back from the wreath and paused before making the sign of the cross on his own body. After that, he backed away, turned, and took several steps away from the wreath, and approached the officer again.
The president finally returned to this mark after a military member pointed a gloved hand back toward Harris, who was standing several feet away.
Both Harris and Biden's Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Denis McDonough, seemed to be holding back smiles as the president dithered, according to the NY Post.
Internet slams Kamala Harris for grinning at the ceremony
After Biden’s embarrassing moment surfaced on social media, several users slammed Harris, who appeared to grin as the POTUS lost his way at the Arlington ceremony.
“It looks like Kamala and the guy standing next to her are trying not to bust out laughing, disgraceful,” one user said.
While a user wrote, “And Kamala standing there with her clowning grin?” another said, “What a damn clown show.”
There were also some users who raised questions about Biden’s health following the incident. “If this happened just once or twice then maybe he is just having a bad day, but the evidence is clear now. This man is falling apart,” one user said
“I bet they wouldn’t trust him to roam around a senior center? No way,” a user asserted.
“This is the man who is supposed to be a world leader. He doesn't know which way is up in this scene,” another one stated.
“When you should be in a rest home, not the White House,” one more wrote.
President Biden pays tribute to US war heroes
During the ceremony, President Biden paid tributes to the fallen US heroes, saying, “Here in Arlington lie heroes who gave what President Lincoln called ‘the last full measure of devotion.”
“Hundreds of graves are here from recent conflicts. Hundreds of patriots gave their all, each of them leaving behind a family who live with their pain and their absence every single day,” he continued.
He went on to say that veterans represent the "steel spine of this nation" and highlighted notable battles in which troops were "linked in a chain of honor that stretches back to our founding days."
“Each one bound by a sacred oath to support and defend. Not a place, not a person, not a president, but an idea, to defend an idea unlike any other in human history," the POTUS said.
As Biden spoke, hundreds of pro-Palestine demonstrators descended on his Delaware mansion to protest the US support for Israel in the conflict in the Middle East.
Dozens of Palestinian flags were seen waving outside his sprawling estate, alongside signs calling for an end to the US funding of Israel after the war-torn nation's retaliatory strikes against Hamas have killed at least 11,000 people in Gaza.
