Papua New Guinea is biting back at Joe Biden after the U.S. president claimed his uncle was eaten by cannibals during World War II.
“He got 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,” Biden told United Steelworkers union members during a campaign stop in Pennsylvania Wednesday.
The cannibal community is traditionally under-served, especially at restaurants, and Biden’s claim appears to be eating them up. Papua’s prime minister couldn’t stomach it, either, so he chewed out Biden in a statement released late Sunday.
In a rare, but well-done, dig at the U.S. president, Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape said Biden’s claim simply may have been “a slip of the tongue,” but there’s still no excuse for disparaging his country:
"President Biden's remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labelled as such."
Many Americans have found Biden’s claim hard to swallow, though some excuse it because, at 81, the president has become quite long in the tooth. And, while others have said that Biden merely “implied” that cannibals ate his uncle, Biden actually said the body was never found “because” of cannibals.
Leftover bombs from WWII, not cannibals, are the real threat to those living in his country today, PM Marape explained in his statement:
"Our people daily live with the fear of being killed by detonated bombs of World War Two."
"I urge President Biden to get the White House to look into cleaning up these remains of WWII so the truth about missing servicemen like Ambrose Finnegan [Biden’s uncle] can be put to rest," Marape added.
Biden can dish it out, now the world is watching to see if he can take it.
Food for thought.