Advance man ‘honored’ to shake Biden’s hand in Kenosha despite Trump’s barb
Trump’s troll roll . . .
The Trumpster, a germaphobe who shuns handshakes, tried to torch his nemesis, Joe Biden, Thursday with Twitter ack-ack.
He did so by tweaking Biden’s advance man, Brian McPartlin, the son of the late Illinois labor legend Geraldine “Jerre” McPartlin.
Trump accused “Joe Hiden,” a masked practitioner of COVID-19 science, of getting off his airplane in Milwaukee and shaking hands with McPartlin sans glove.
Trump described McPartlin as looking “stunned” by Biden’s gloveless hand.
But McPartlin tells Sneed: “I wasn’t startled.”
McPartlin, who lives in Chicago, was there to greet Biden after his plane touched down in Milwaukee en route to visit Kenosha police shooting victim Jacob Blake and his family. Biden also spoke at a Kenosha church and made several other stops in one of his only campaign stops since the outbreak of COVID-19 across the country.
“I was honored. I consider Joe Biden family,” he said.
Then McPartlin tossed a brick at Trump.
“How did he know I was stunned? We both had masks on,” McPartlin said of himself and the former vice president.
That’s in stark contrast to Trump, who spent hours visiting Kenosha earlier in the week without a mask — as did many of the 1,500 who sat on the White House lawn to hear the president’s speech on the last night of the Republican National Convention the week before.
And, McPartlin added, he had taken an added safety step: “I had gotten tested for COVID at least 24 hours earlier!”
It was negative.
McPartlin also denied Trump’s claim there was no enthusiasm for Biden’s visit. That was particularly true during a backyard meeting with educators in Wauwatosa, a suburb of Milwaukee.
A couple of hundred people “came out cheering,” McPartlin recalled. The crowd was social distancing — and there were no handshakes.
“It was amazing the amount of people that huddled outside the meeting, just wanting to see Biden and say something to him,” McPartlin said.
“There was great warmth and great interest. All in all, everybody seemed very pleased.”
McPartlin, who will remain on the road with Biden for his upcoming campaign stops in swing states, said he has known Biden and his family for years and “adores him.”
Besides both being Democrats, the two have many things in common.
For example?
They have the same favorite flavor of ice cream: vanilla.