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WASHINGTON (AP) – President Joe Biden was at a Wisconsin transit station, speaking about repairing roads and bridges, when he shifted gears and began defending his plan to send money to parents for each minor child, payments that some critics call a “gift”. “
Biden crossed his arms, leaned on the desk, leaned over the microphone and lowered his voice.
“Hey guys, I think it’s time to give regular people tax relief,” he said, almost whispering as he addressed his critics. “The rich are doing well. “
This was the last time Biden spoke volumes while whispering.
The White House and communications experts say Biden’s whisper is just this veteran politician’s old-fashioned way of trying to make a connection while making a point.
Critics of Biden on the right as well as some late-night TV talk show hosts say the whispers are “creepy” and “weird.” Conservatives are using dramatic and sweet speech to fuel the narrative that the president is unfit for the job, and comedians are deploying it to make people laugh.
“It’s an intimate form of communication,” said Vanessa Beasley, associate professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt University.
Biden whispered some of his responses to reporters’ questions at an impromptu White House press conference last month after he and a group of Senate Republicans announced they had struck a deal to spend $ 973 trillion dollars to rebuild the country’s infrastructure.
As he stood in the East Room, Biden was asked about his schedule to provide additional financial assistance to families. He leaned over, his eyes wide, and whispered, “So far I’ve brought them $ 1.9 trillion in relief. They will receive substantial checks in the mail.
During a lengthy response to a separate question, he whispered, “I wrote the bill,” before leaning over to approach the microphone and adding, “on the environment.”
Speaking of employers’ difficulties hiring, Biden leaned over to the microphone again, his arms resting on the desk and said quietly that the solution was to “pay them more.”
Beasley said the use of the whisper by Biden, who served as a United States Senator and Vice President for more than 40 years in total, is a throwback to a distant era of more friendly relations between lawmakers and members of the United States. the Washington press.
“I think it’s a symbolic move towards a kind of intimacy and familiarity,” she said.
Beasley and others noted the contrast between Biden and former President Donald Trump, who often spoke loudly and angrily.
“One of the things Trump never did was whisper,” said Robin Lakoff, professor emeritus of linguistics at the University of California, Berkeley.
Public speakers – lawmakers, celebrities, business executives – often raise or lower their voices for dramatic effect or tell jokes for their audience to follow instead of falling asleep.
Beasley said the tone of political speech these days seems too loud, so that “it just pulls everyone back a bit when you see someone going in a different direction and lowering their volume.”
Lakoff said Biden didn’t really whisper because his vocal cords were vibrating and making sound.
“A real whisper is something you might not hear very well,” she said, comparing what Biden does to a “stage whisper” in which an actor in a play comes out of character to share a secret. with the audience or preview an action that’s about to happen.
The White House has defended Biden, saying Tories who criticize his way of speaking, including his stuttering, are doing so because they don’t have a better platform to offer voters ahead of the November 2022 midterm election. .
“Under President Biden’s leadership, COVID cases have plunged more than 90%, we have reached a historic level of job creation, the economy is growing at its highest rate in 40 years and we have achieved a breakthrough on the world stage to stop the offshoring of US jobs, ”said Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates.
“And this performative criticism is just the latest recognition by Republicans that he’s leading the table at them as they seek a case to make,” Bates whispered.
Kayleigh McEnany, a White House press secretary for Trump, called Biden’s whisper “peculiar” and “crazy” before panelists on the Fox News show she co-hosts discussed. Other Fox News figures and guests also examined Biden’s low-volume speech.
On the late-night talk show circuit, comedian Stephen Colbert introduced what he called Biden’s “new flowering rhetoric” in a recent monologue on his CBS show.
After playing clips of the president, Colbert leaned into a hand-held microphone and whispered, “Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. You know I’m a fan, but the way you lean forward and whisper. Guess what? It’s a little scary. It’s a little scary.
On the flip side, Biden also raises his voice, as he did when addressing the nation from the White House lawn on July 4.
“On this holy day, I look at these monuments on our National Mall, and beyond them, in the hearts of our people across the country and I know it,” he said, the voice coming out. uplifting as he neared the conclusion of his speech. “Betting against America has never, ever been a good bet. Never.
“We just have to remember who we are. We are the United States of America, ”Biden thundered. “And there’s nothing – nothing – that we can’t do if we do it together.”
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