WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden appeared to call out the late Rep. Jackie Walorski, R-Ind., who died in a car wreck in August, for being in attendance during a speech Wednesday at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health.

Biden thanked "all of you here," singling out Walorski and other lawmakers, for their work on hunger as he spoke about his administration's efforts to end hunger in the U.S. by 2030.

"Jackie, are you here? Where's Jackie? I don't think – she was going to be here," Biden said.

Walorski and two of her congressional staff members died in August during a head-on car collision in northern Indiana. She was 58.

  • came_apart_at_Kmart [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Walorski was "on top of mind" for the president when asked about the gaffe because of the former congresswoman's work on hunger and ahead of Biden hosting the Walorski family Friday at the White House.

    Jean-Pierre said she believes Americans will understand why Biden was thinking about Walorski. "I don't think it's all that unusual to have someone top of mind."

    is "top of mind" some kind of new phrase that the cool people are saying these days? or is this like when they were trying to make "fetch" happen?

    edit: my bad, i did not know she was born in France to Haitian parents. je suis desole, je ne suis pas super chouette.

    • InevitableSwing [none/use name]
      hexagon
      ·
      2 years ago

      “top of mind”

      The only time I would use "top of mind" is to make a joke. I might actually start laughing if I was in public and I overheard some earnest lib actually saying it. "X is top of mind..." is just a fancy phrase for "[the person] was thinking about X". People in DC, pundits, etc love all that sophisticated sounding crap. It's like "The American people" instead of just saying "Americans" or "the public".

      “I don’t think it’s all that unusual to have someone top of mind.”

      I wonder if there's a line of dialog in The West Wing that's pretty much the same as that.

    • 2Password2Remember [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Top of mind is a super common phrase in English, what are you talking about. Although "on top of mind" sounds awkward, if not actually wrong, to me

      Death to America