Biden’s watch under the radar!
Twitter fumes at NYT’s obsession over POTUS Biden’s $7,000 watch
On the very first day he was sworn in as the 46th president of the United State, Joe Biden signed off close to ten executive orders, reversing some of the most controversial Trump policies, including the so-called Muslim ban, withdrawal from the WHO and the Paris Climate Accord and stopping the Keystone XL Pipeline project, while rolling out a trillion-dollar plan to combat the pandemic.
Yet, what stood out to some sections of the American press was the US$7000 Rolex wristwatch Biden wore on Inauguration Day. The New York Times (NYT), for instance, called the stainless steel Rolex DATEJUST “a far cry from the Everyman timepieces that every president not named Trump has worn conspicuously in recent decades”.
And Twitter did its thing — users rolled their eyes over the ludicrous insight.
George Takei, the former Star Trek actor tweeted, “No (New York Times) we don’t care what watch Joe Biden wore, like we never cared about Obama’s tan suit.”
GQ writer Laura Bassett wrote, “Headlines complaining about Biden’s Peloton and Rolex after four years of a dude with a literal gold toilet are beyond parody.”
There were others who called for the New York Times to apologise to the family, hypothesising that the watch had belonged to Biden’s son Beau, who’d passed away after a battle with brain cancer. Some others thought the watch was a gift from First Lady Jill Biden.
Incidentally, Clinton had chosen a Timex Ironman in 1993, while his successor George W. Bush opted for a Timex model costing less than US$50. Barack Obama wore American watches such as Detroit’s Shinola and California-based Jorg Gray.