At the end of a Republican presser on Tuesday blasting President Biden’s new immigration executive order, GOP Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa was caught on a hot mic joking about President Biden’s cannibal story.
The president said in April that his maternal uncle, Ambrose Finnegan, was shot down in New Guinea “and they never found the body because there used to be—there were a lot of cannibals, for real, in that part of New Guinea.”
The Pentagon has confirmed, however, that on May 14, 1944, “for unknown reasons, this plane was forced to ditch in the ocean off the north coast of New Guinea. Both engines failed at low altitude, and the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard."
Turning to Sen. John Kennedy after the press event, Ernst said, “Bottom line, never trust a man whose uncle was eaten by cannibals.”
This is the greatest hot mike ever! 😂😂
— DelilahM (@delilahmused) June 4, 2024
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was forced to respond at the time, with reporters jokingly wondering if she had a “cannibal” tab in her binder.
"The president highlighted his uncle’s story as he made the case for honoring our sacred commitment to — to equip those we send to war and to take care of them and their families when they come home," Jean-Pierre explained to reporters, who pressed why the president would need to embellish a story to do that.
"I mean, look, I — I don’t have anything beyond — but what I just laid out. But it was a really proud moment for him. It was incredibly emotional," she said, referring to the president spending time looking for his uncle's name at a war memorial.
"And I think we can’t — we can’t forget that moment," KJP continued. "And we cannot also forget what it means to be a commander-in-chief, what it means to lift up our service members, what it means to make sure that we respect their service."