WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden publicly sought out Jackie Walorski, an Indiana Congresswoman who died in a car accident in August, during a conference on hunger on Wednesday, seeming to forget that she had passed away.
Biden thanked other conference organizers, then asked: “Jackie are you here? Where’s Jackie?”
Walorski, a Republican, was one of four Congressional co-sponsors of the bill to fund the conference. She was killed with two staffers in early August.
House issued a statement from Biden that said he and his wife Jill were “shocked and saddened” by her sudden accident.
“Truly an awful and disgraceful blunder,” Representative Vicky Hartzler, a Missouri Republican, tweeted in reference to the mistake.
Biden was “acknowledging her incredible work,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said when asked about the incident later, adding that Biden had already planned to welcome the congresswoman’s family to the White House for a bill signing on Friday. “She was on top of mind,” Jean-Pierre said.
