Biden insists Al Qaeda’s threat is at ‘historic low’ and admits Alaska is ‘far’ from Ground Zero in 9/11 speech that kicked off with a joke about the governor also being from Scranton
Joe Biden claimed the threat from Al Qaeda is at an all-time low as he justified his decision to mark the 9/11 anniversary thousands of miles from Ground Zero.
Biden has been lambasted for giving a speech in Alaska, 4,300 miles from Ground Zero but claimed ‘distance did not diminish the pain we felt all across the nation of September 11.’
He started his short a speech with a joke about baseball and appeared to forget the name of a military officer hosting him.
‘All kind of threat from Afghanistan and Pakistan has reached an historic low,’ Biden said. ‘All this has changed over the last 22 years.’
Joe Biden defended his decision to mark 9/11 in Alaska
Despite the solemn occasion the president started by joking about how he and the Governor of Alaska Mike Dunleavy were both born in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
He said: ‘I wish I had him playing in my high school ball club while I was playing, I could have been an All American.’
Biden went on to detail his recent five-day trip to the G7 in India and his stop in Vietnam en route to Alaska.
‘These trips are a central part of how we’re going to ensure the United States is flanked by the broadest array of allies and partners who will stand with us to deter any threat to our security to build a world that is safer for all of our children,’ he said.
‘Something that today of all days, we are reminded is not a given.’
Biden delivered his remarks to U.S. forces at Elmendorf-Richardson Air Force Base in Alaska.
The White House instead sent Vice President Kamala Harris to the ceremony at Ground Zero in New York.
Biden told his audience in Alaska: ‘Never forget. Never forget. We never forget. I remember standing there the next day and looking at the building. I felt like I was looking through the gates of hell.

Biden spoke at a base where aircraft were scrambled on 9/11
‘But we’ll never forget that when faced with evil, and an enemy who sought to tear us apart, we endured. We endured.’
He added; ‘I spent many 9/11s on those hallowed grounds to bear witness and remember those we lost every day. But especially the last few days, their memory has been with me.’
He said 22 years ago planes had been scrambled on high alert from the base he was at.
‘Alaskan communities opened their doors to stranded passengers,’ he said. ‘American flags sold out in every store were placed in front of seemingly every home. We know that on this day every American’s heart was wounded.’
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