The US President made an apparent blunder with his choice of words, not once but several times, during a White House briefing on the LA wildfires.
Deadly fires are continuing to ravage California, with thousands of acres of land, buildings and homes destroyed across the Palisades, Eaton, Kenneth, Hurst and Lidia neighborhoods in LA.
The inferno has claimed the lives of at least 10 people at the time of writing, though experts warn the death toll could still rise with more high winds forecast to fan the flames.
It’s clear the disaster is nowhere near from being over as firefighters are forced to grapple with the growing firestorm while water supplies run low.
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power said all three of its one million-gallon water tanks that supply fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades had run dry by 3am on Wednesday.
While discussing the federal response to the ongoing situation in Washington, the President came under scrutiny for his poor turn of phrase.
Joe Biden told speakers twice to ‘fire away’ on Thursday, which visibly shocked attendees around the Roosevelt Room board table.
To the Californian Vice President, Kamala Harris, he said: “Madam Vice President, I know you’re directly affected, so you fire away.”
In response to her surprised look at the wordplay, Biden added: “No pun intended” to a few laughs in the room.
Yet mere moments later, he repeated the expression to the US Forest Service Chief Randy Moore, saying: “Chief, why don’t you fire away?”
He then appeared to repeat the utterance at least another two times.
Twitter users have since slammed the President’s remarks, calling it ‘disgraceful’, ‘despicable’ and ‘disgusting’.
The President ultimately pledged the federal government will support California’s effort to tackle the inferno with 100 percent of financial support for 180 days.
However, the 82-year-old took a swipe at local power companies for turning off the power and applauded the Democrat California governor, Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after President-elect, Donald Trump, called on Newsom to resign, saying the fires were ‘all his fault’.
Biden said: “What I know from talking to the governor [is] that there are concerns out there that there’s also been a water shortage.
“The fact is, the utilities understandably shut off power because they’re worried the lines that carry energy were going to be blown down and spark additional fires.
“There’s a direct correlation between the utility company and the ability to pump water out of a hydrant. And so it allows for a lot of uninformed people to make assertions or concerns or accusations about the local officials not caring or not working.”
The accusations come as two of the area’s electricity providers said they were not to blame for the hydrants running out of water, claiming the water pumps and water flows ‘were not affected by power outages’, according to the New York Times.
The criticism also comes as Biden was condemned just a day earlier for sharing his ‘good news’ that he had become a great-grandfather during a visit to a Santa Monica fire station.
