Joe tours Ky. ruins

Consoles storm vics

President Biden on Wednesday surveyed the destruction in Kentucky, five days after a series of tornadoes killed at least 74 state residents.

“There’s no red tornadoes or blue tornadoes. There’s no red states or blue states when this stuff starts to happen,” Biden said during a briefing with officials at the Fort Campbell Army base.

“I think, at least in my experience, it either brings people together or really knocks them apart, and it’s moving you together here.”

Later, Biden toured the ravaged towns of Mayfield and Dawson Springs.

Speaking in Dawson Springs, Biden announced that the federal government would fully reimburse Kentucky for cleanup operations.

But not everyone appreciated Biden’s visit.

BBC reporter Tara McKelvey tweeted that one person in Mayfield carried a campaign flag for former President Donald Trump.

As Biden emerged from his motorcade, someone shouted twice, “Let’s go, Brandon!” — an anti-Biden neologism that means “F--k Joe Biden,” she reported.

And Biden at one point worked in a dig at notoriously unvaccinated Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers amid the solemn visit, telling a storm survivor wearing a Packers winter hat, “Tell your quarterback he’s got to get the vaccine,” CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe tweeted.

Biden, who has been criticized for his handsiness with women, also draped his arm around the shoulders of Kentucky First Lady Britainy Beshear, 42, for about 15 seconds as he commended her for organizing a holiday toy drive that has collected 20,000 gifts for Christmas.

“No kid is going to go . . . without a gift,” Biden said before releasing his grasp.

“There’s a lot of post-traumatic stress that comes from lying in your house and all of a sudden the roof goes blowing off and you wonder whether your kids are around,” he said.

Biden also praised the sense of community in rural America.

“There’s a saying in small towns: ‘People know about it when you’re born and they care about it when you die,’ ” said Biden.

Adding a bit of folksy charm, Biden said: “When I come back, I got one beautiful lady — and her husband — promised me a meal. She’s apparently a hell of a cook, so I’m coming back for the meal.”

Later, Biden stood at a podium with an elementary-schoolaged boy named Dane, who he called “a new friend of mine.” He also called up the boy’s cousin, a soon-to-be University of Kentucky graduate named Abby, and introduced them to the assembled media.