US President Joe Biden chuckled as he weighed in on children’s fentanyl overdose deaths, but many who witnessed his mirth were not amused. Offering a response to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., who had earlier lambasted the government for failing to tackle the opioid crisis in the US, POTUS said:
"I should digress, probably, I've read, she, she was very specific recently, saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that, that I killed her sons. Well, the interesting thing is that fentanyl they took came during the last administration," Biden said, with a laugh, as he then quipped, "Isn't [Marjorie Taylor Greene] amazing? Oof."
Biden was speaking during the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.
Earlier, Marjorie Taylor Greene did not mince her words at a hearing on the southern border crisis on February 28, saying:
"This government has failed you, and it's failing American families, and it's failing, most of all, it's failing our children and our young people."
Greene was moved by a harrowing testimony from Rebecca Kiessling, who narrated how her two sons died on July 29, 2020, due to fentanyl poisoning. According to earlier media reports, the woman's sons believed they were taking Percocet pills.
After the hearing, Greene tweeted that the woman had lost two sons because the Biden administration refused to "stop the Cartel’s [sic] from murdering Americans everyday by fentanyl."
Twitter screenshot of post by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga.
© Photo : Twitter
Joe Biden's mirthful response was denounced as "shameful and embarrassing" by Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., as he commented on the video, shared by the Republican National Committee on Twitter.
Other netizens were also unimpressed by the lack of empathy shown by the president.
Twitter screenshot.
© Photo : Twitter
Twitter screenshot.
© Photo : Twitter
Twitter screenshot.
© Photo : Twitter
Twitter screenshot.
© Photo : Twitter
Over the last several years, the United States has been facing an unprecedented opioid crisis, with deaths related to fentanyl - a synthetic opioid analgesic several hundred times more powerful than morphine - skyrocketing.
"In just the last year, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has seized a historic 260,000 pounds of illicit drugs primarily at ports of entry on our border, including nearly 15,000 pounds of fentanyl," a White House release in February stated. It added that the Drug Enforcement Administration seized more than 26,000 pounds of fentanyl in fiscal year 2022.