Papua New Guinea PM says nation ‘does not deserve’ to be called ‘cannibals’ after Biden says uncle eaten in WWII
Joe’s eating his words — again!
Papua New Guinea Prime Minister James Marape blasted President Biden Sunday, saying his nation did not “deserve” to be called “cannibals” after the commander in chief falsely suggested last week that his uncle was devoured by New Guinea natives during World War II.
Marape said in a statement to multiple outlets that Biden “appeared to imply his uncle was eaten by cannibals” after his plane went down near the Pacific island and the president’s “remarks may have been a slip of the tongue; however, my country does not deserve to be labeled as such.”
The PM’s rebuke of the commander in chief’s careless claims came the same day that Marape met Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Papua New Guinea’s capital, Port Moresby, marking a potential setback for US relations with the key diplomatic ally.
During a visit to the battleground state of Pennsylvania April 17, Biden twice implied that tribesmen feasted on the remains of his uncle, Army Air Corps aviator Ambrose Finnegan.
“He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals at the time. They never recovered his body, but the government went back when I went down there and they checked and found some parts of the plane,” Biden said during remarks at a war memorial in Scranton, Pa., that bears Finnegan’s name.
Later the same day, the president told a group of Pittsburgh steelworkers that his mother’s brother “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.”
Reporters ribbed the president for the falsehood, as records from the Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency clearly state Finnegan’s engines failed and “the aircraft’s nose hit the water hard” in the Pacific Ocean on May 14, 1944.
“Three men failed to emerge from the sinking wreck and were lost in the crash. One crew member survived and was rescued by a passing barge,” the agency said. “An aerial search the next day found no trace of the missing aircraft or the lost crew members.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre admitted the following day that Biden’s uncle “lost his life when the military aircraft he was on crashed in the Pacific after taking off near New Guinea” — then chastised the Washington press corps on Friday for making light of the tragedy.
“Why is President Biden saying [Finnegan] was shot down — there is no evidence of that — and why is he saying that his uncle was eaten by cannibals?” asked Fox News reporter Peter Doocy. “That is a bad way to go.”
“He lost his life. Look, we should not make jokes about this,” Jean-Pierre scolded.
“It’s not — President Biden said his uncle was eaten by cannibals,” Doocy pressed.
“Your last line, it’s for a laugh — it’s for a funny statement,” Jean-Pierre shot back. “And he takes this very seriously. His uncle who served and protected this country lost his life serving, and that should matter.”
In his Sunday statement, Marape claimed that the US had yet to clean up the wreckage it had left behind during the Second World War, which “needlessly dragged” his nation “into a conflict that was not their doing.”
“The remains of WWII lie scattered all over PNG, including the plane that carried President Biden’s uncle,” he said. “Our people daily live with the fear of being killed by detonated bombs of WWII.”
There had been cannibalistic tribes in the region — but present-day Papua New Guinea residents piled on the president for speculating that his uncle would have been seen as a “good meal” to a mid-century tribesman.
“They wouldn’t just eat any white men that fell from the sky,” Michael Kabuni, a lecturer in political science at the University of Papua New Guinea, told the Guardian last week.
“I am lost for words actually,” Allan Bird, governor of East Sepik province — near where Finnegan went down — also told the outlet. “I don’t feel offended. It’s hilarious, really. … I am sure when Biden was a child, those are the things he heard his parents say. And it probably stuck with him all his life.”
Biden has told whoppers about family tragedies and personal history since he first entered political life more than a half century ago, with his 1988 campaign for the presidency famously imploding due to his brazen plagiarism and his falsehoods about it.
