During his visit to Pennsylvania, Biden sported a Trump hat and jokingly addressed his age and fabricated tales concerning Ohio animals.
The encounter took place at a fire station close to Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where United Flight 93 crashed into a field following an attempt to disrupt its takeover 23 years ago.
** footage of the incident** depicts Biden engaging in friendly banter with individuals inside the station, including a guy in a Trump cap. Biden offers the man a presidential cap and the individual asks him to autograph it.
“Can you recall your name?” Biden jokingly inquires the president. The man's aide hands him a marker: “I can't remember my name. I'm senile.”
“You're an old goat,” the man says. “Yeah, I know I'm an old lad,” Biden replies. “I'm aware you'd know about that.” Both men chuckle, as does the gathered crowd. The footage reveals several children in the background wearing Trump merchandise.
Biden signs the presidential cap and requests the man's Trump cap. The man complies and asks the president if he'd like his signature. Biden responds: “No way.”
The crowd encourages the president to wear the Trump cap over a Shanksville Volunteer Fire Co. Station 627 cap he's already wearing. The president first declines, saying “I'm not up for it,” before giving in to the crowd's demands, prompting laughter and applause.
“I'm proud of you now,” the man says while shaking Biden's hand. Biden addresses the crowd: “Just remember, no eating dogs and cats,” possibly alluding to a fabricated claim about Haitian immigrants in Ohio that the Trump campaign, former President Donald Trump, and Republican vice presidential nominee Sen. JD Vance have promoted. Unenthusiastic responses can be heard in the background at this point.
Biden exits, still holding the Trump cap. The individual who shared the footage stated in a TikTok comment that the president retained the hat. Efforts to contact the source and the man in the footage were unsuccessful on Thursday.
This was one of the few occasions since taking office that Biden engaged with a predominantly pro-Trump crowd; most of his public appearances have focused on well-off Democratic donors or ardent supporters of the president and his policies. It exemplified the kind of door-to-door politics that the president has made his trademark throughout his career.
“At the Shanksville Fire Station, @POTUS discussed the country's bipartisan unity following 9/11 and suggested we should revert to that,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates stated in a post on X. “As a token of goodwill, he presented a cap to a Trump supporter, who then suggested that, in the same spirit, the president wear his Trump cap. He briefly wore it.”
Trump's campaign attempted to leverage the situation, thanking Biden for his support via a social media post.
The day wasn't devoid of kindness embodied by the tragic event. Earlier that day, Vice President Kamala Harris and Trump shared a brief handshake at a commemoration in Manhattan.
The meeting ensued the day after Trump and Harris faced off at a debate in Philadelphia. During the debate, Trump suggested he would have sent Harris a MAGA cap, claiming she had copied many of his policies.
“Everything she believed in three or four years ago is obsolete. She's adopting my views now. In fact, I was going to send her a MAGA cap,” Trump declared.
Despite being in a predominantly pro-Trump crowd, President Biden engaged in a friendly interaction, joking with a man wearing a Trump cap and even briefly donning it himself. This incident occurred at the Shanksville Fire Station, where discussions about bipartisan unity following 9/11 took place.
This encounter in politics offered a moment of unity, as Biden and a Trump supporter shared laughter and goodwill, even if the conversation touched on divisive topics like political policies and labels.
