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Sarah Huckabee Sandersis walking back a tweet she sent during the Democratic debate Thursday night mockingJoe Bidenfor stuttering.
While watching the former vice president debate with fellow democratic candidates, Sanders, 37, sent out a tweet that not only made fun of what Biden was saying, but how he said it.
“I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I hhhave absolutely no idea what Biden is talking about. #DemDebate,” the former White House press secretary wrote on the social media platform. The tweet has since been deleted.
“I’ve worked my whole life to overcome a stutter. And it’s my great honor to mentor kids who have experienced the same. It’s called empathy. Look it up,” the presidential candidatewrote.
In arare apologyfrom Sanders, she responded to Biden’s comment, admitting that she didn’t know he grew up with a stutter.
“I actually didn’t know that about you and that is commendable. I apologize and should have made my point respectfully,” the former White House press secretary wrote on Twitter after Biden called her out for her rude remarks.
While Sanders said that she didn’t know about Biden’s stutter, he has often candidly addressed his speech impediment.
In 2011, Bidenshared with PEOPLEhis painful journey as a stutterer, including the cruel nickname he was given in school: Joe Impedimenta. “You get so desperate, you’re so embarrassed,” Biden recalled of those boyhood days.
He’s also spoken about the fact that Donald Trump reminds him of those bullies he used to face in school.
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Sanders isn’t the only Trump supporter to mock Biden for his speech impairment.
“Biden can’t get through two sentences without stuttering,”Eric Trumppreviously said on Fox News.
While some in Washington have chosen to use Biden’s stutter against him, it hasinspired otherswho similarly struggle. Now, it’s something that Biden is proud to have overcome.
Joe Biden.ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
“I don’t think of myself as continuing to stutter,” Bidensaid in an interviewwith Axios published earlier this month. “That doesn’t cross my mind that I’m stuttering. But apparently, people will say occasionally when I’m tired… I’ll find myself searching for a second.”
“Look, the mistakes I make are mistakes,” Biden continued, referencing a few recent verbal blunders on the campaign trail. “And some people think I still stutter. I don’t think of myself that way.”
And while Biden said that having to speak publicly with a stutter growing up was “mortifying,” he thinks of it now as the best thing that ever happened to him. “It gave me insight that I don’t know that I would have ever had before.”
More than 70 million people stutter worldwide,according to the Stuttering Foundation.
source: people.com
