President Joe Biden raised plenty of eyebrows and sparked some backlash online following an awkward moment Monday during which he told a nurse running a coronavirus vaccine site that she “looks like a freshman.” The remark came during a live video conference event with health care workers in Arizona, with both the president and Vice President Kamala Harris joining the call to discuss the ongoing nationwide vaccination efforts.
As nurse Brittney Hayes finished describing the process for residents to get the vaccine, which she dubbed a “dose of hope,” Biden questioned her age, asking, “Are you a freshman at the university?” Hayes, who had described herself as being from the Arizona State University but made clear she was the “head charge nurse” at the vaccination site, responded to the president’s question with, “No. No.” The president, however, was persistent, adding, “You look like a freshman” before thanking her for working on the frontlines of the pandemic. Hayes replied, “Why thank you.”
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BIDEN: “Are you a freshman at the university?”
Nurse: “No.”
BIDEN: “I’m teasing… you look like a freshman.”
Nurse: “Thank you.”
Later tells Biden she’s been an RN for nine years pic.twitter.com/T1KLChOHXQ
— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) February 8, 2021
After Harris took a turn asking the “tough” questions, Biden again seemed to return to the topic of Hayes’ youthful appearance. He asked, “And you’re a — a nurse?” Hayes responded “I am, I’m a nurse. I’m an RN. I’ve been an RN for about nine years now.” Biden then went on to praise nurses, stating, “Well, I know, having been a significant consumer of healthcare, I can tell — I know the Vice President knows this, when I say it: Doctors let you live; nurses make you want to live. If there’s any angels in Heaven, they’re all nurses, male and female. And that’s not an exaggeration.”
The moment stirred up plenty of discussion online, with former President Donald Trump’s oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., simply writing, “cringe.” Another person dubbed it “old school sexism,” with somebody else questioning, “how hard is it to talk to women without referencing their looks?” However, not everyone took issue with the encounter, with one person writing, “He is paying her a compliment, in an old-fashioned but well-meaning way.” Several others pointed out Trump’s own history, with another person writing, “OMG it was a compliment, stop making him out to be creepy. He didn’t suggest grabbing her p– which is apparently acceptable so.” That comment was in reference to the 2016 Access Hollywood tape in which Trump made disparaging comments about women.
This was not the first awkward encounter for Biden, who was nicknamed “Creepy Joe” by Trump and his supporters during the 2020 campaign trail. Biden has faced scrutiny for his interactions with women and young girls, including introducing their personal space. The New York Post notes that at the beginning of the 2019 campaign trail, he released a video in which he acknowledged making people “uncomfortable” and promised to be “much more mindful” in the future.
