Francis Brennan, the Trump campaign’s Director of Strategic Response, posted a tweet on Sunday mocking Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden for “meandering along” instead of talking to reporters, but faced a swift backlash because of what Biden was doing at the time: walking out of a church through the grounds of the cemetery where his son, Beau Biden, and first wife Neilia Biden and daughter Naomi, are all buried.

Biden was in Wilmington, Delaware on Sunday and attended the morning services at St. Joseph on the Brandywine Roman Catholic Church, and then walked outside. The video clip, posted by Brennan, shows Biden walking out of the church past rows of gravestones that surround the church as a reporter calls out to him. Biden waves and continues walking — to visit the graves of his family members who are buried there.

REPORTER: “Mr. Vice President come talk to us.”

Joe Biden just keeps meandering along. pic.twitter.com/6tnNQj2Ucg

— Francis Brennan (@FrancisBrennan) September 6, 2020

Beau Biden, who previously served as Delaware’s Attorney General, passed away from cancer in 2015, and Neilia and Naomi Biden died in a 1972 car accident that also injured Beau and his brother Hunter Biden. Biden has spoken openly of the grief he suffered from these losses, declining to run for president in 2016 so soon after Beau’s death and continuing to wear the rosary that belonged to his son.

Reaction to Brennan’s tweet was almost uniformly negative. Brennan, one of the staffers behind the “Trump War Room,” appeared to have been attempting to dunk on Biden for avoiding reporters, but the location was more than sufficient justification to not engage with the press, in most people’s views.

“Are you human?” asked Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and many tweets followed along that theme.

It’s a cemetery. Where his son is buried. Are you human? https://t.co/MSEIPlUxUq

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) September 6, 2020

It’s literally all they got https://t.co/7ubHHOw7qQ

— Steve Schale (@steveschale) September 7, 2020

In July, a RNC spokesman mockingly tweeted a photo of Biden and his dead son as a boy. Today, a Trump campaign spokesman mockingly tweeted a video of Biden visiting his son’s grave. pic.twitter.com/3v15U4eWe7

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) September 6, 2020

Joe Biden visits his son’s grave after attending church this morning. Punk from Trump campaign ridicules him. https://t.co/2rYPqCKImv

— Bill Kristol (@BillKristol) September 6, 2020

Here’s Trump’s “director of strategic response” trying to trash Biden for not talking to reporters…while he was visiting his son’s grave. Our hope may lie in the fact that Team Trump boasts not only some of the worst people alive, but the stupidest. https://t.co/Fpe5tFCsdK

— Mark Harris (@MarkHarrisNYC) September 6, 2020

So much of the criticism of Biden from the Trump campaign, I look at and I can’t understand who it’s appealing to. Biden politely declined to talk to a reporter while at the cemetery visiting his son’s grave. Which voters will dislike Biden for this? https://t.co/cNuo3XTpTN

— Michael David Smith (@MichaelDavSmith) September 6, 2020

Joe Biden was visiting his son’s grave. You are not even human https://t.co/VXXoCHb0gK

— Mia Farrow (@MiaFarrow) September 6, 2020

Christopher Reeves at the Daily Kos slammed Brennan’s tweet as proof that the Trump campaign has “no moral center” for attacking one of the “moments [that] are just off-limits,” the “personal, private losses” of a grieving father.

Hours later and despite the backlash, Brennan had not deleted the tweet or offered any apology or other explanation.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/3i6wgOS