During a campaign tour through Pennsylvania in January of 2024, one in which he was also heckled by protesters at a coffee shop, Biden was pressed on how is “Bidenomics” economic policies are polling. Responding, the president ended up doing his weird, creepy whisper and making some wild claims about the banking industry and the fees it charges.

That exchange, which occurred after the President took a tour of the Allentown, Pennsylvania, Fire Training Academy, began with a question about the economy and how Americans view the president’s “Bidenomics” economic policies.

Biden was asked, “Mr. President, polling still shows that more Americans than not still disapprove of your handling of the economy. So, what specifically will you do this year to turn that around and make Americans feel better about how the economy is doing?”

Responding, Biden claimed that Americans are actually feeling better and better about the economy, which is doing “fine.” He said, “If you notice, they’re feeling much better about how the economy is doing. What we haven’t done is letting them know exactly who got it changed. That’s the part. That’s what’s happening. If you look at the consumer confidence measures, they’re way up. Looking across the board, everybody is doing better. And they believe it; they know it. And they’re just beginning to sink in.”

Continuing, Biden tried to play to the crowd at the Fire Training Academy by saying, “One of the things that people don’t know — I mean, the idea that the people — the firefighters know — but the idea that I — because of what I did in terms of the funding for fire departments. Guess what? They got a fire school now here. Guess who’s paying for it? Not local. The federal government is paying for it.”

Then, after giving a rambling explanation of how his infrastructure bill and related policies are working, Biden also declared victory on healthcare cost issues. He said, “Same way with the healthcare piece. All of a sudden, people are realizing, ‘My God, not only insulin going down.’ We’re going to have 15 more drugs where now they’re going to be able to negotiate the price. Prices are going to come down dramatically.”

Continuing on that point, Biden made the fair point, one many on the right bring up as well, that the cost of certain drugs is far less in foreign countries than in America, a serious issue that must be fixed. He said, “Any of you have a prescription drug from an American company? You give me that drug, I’ll go have it — I’ll — you give you that prescription, I’ll have it filled in — in Toronto or London or Brazil. Guess what? It costs a hell of a lot less. Same company, same outfit.”

But then Biden went from that reasonable point to utter gibberish. He claimed that banks charge a massive amount just for checking your balance. Further, he made that ridiculous claim while breaking into his creepy whisper voice. He said, “And the last thing is — one of the things that’s going to have an impact is, and I know it doesn’t matter to you guys –I’m being facetious; I shouldn’t kid like that — but when you want to call and check the balance on your account, you get charged 30 bucks. Is that fair? Is that fair, these junk fees?”

The RNC, tweeting about the odd incident, said, “Biden brings out his creepy whisper in Pennsylvania: ‘When you wanna call and check the balance on your account, they charge $30!’” That tweet drew the attention of commenters who chimed in to note that the claim wasn’t even true. One, for example, said, “That’s just another lie. Who gets charged $30 bucks to check a account balance? Yeah no one.”

Watch Biden’s weird whisper and astounding claim here:

Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video