As Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden visited the grave of his son Beau on Tuesday morning, Trump campaign national press secretary Hogan Gidley was asking if the nominee had “called a lid.”
the trump campaign as biden is quite literally praying at his son’s grave: https://t.co/yhVLpIc84c
— David Mack (@davidmackau) November 3, 2020
The abrupt question smacked of insensitivity as Biden began Election Day by attending church with his wife Jill Biden and two of their granddaughters at St. Joseph on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware.
The Trump campaign has often invoked calling a “lid” — a term reporters use when a politician is done traveling for the day — as a way to mock Biden and paint him as a low energy candidate who rarely emerges from his “basement” to campaign.
Biden’s son Beau died of brain cancer five years prior to his run for president and the Democratic nominee often visits the Roman Catholic Church where his son is buried while campaigning.
The Democratic candidate has often said he regretted not running for president in 2016 — a time when the wounds of his son’s death from brain cancer were still quite new — but he also seems to have called on his son’s memory as inspiration as he concludes the 2020 presidential election battle.
The Democratic nominee has lauded his late son — an Iraq War veteran and former Delaware attorney general — as his role model, often invoking Beau’s commitment to public service through his dedicated efforts in the military.
Biden dialed up his criticism of President Trump’s attitude toward service men and women last month, by contrasting the efforts of his son and others who went to war on the nation’s behalf, with President Trump’s apparent disregard for fallen military members, reportedly calling them “suckers” and “losers” during a trip to France in 2018.
