WHY DID NO ONE HELP PRESIDENT BIDEN AT THE PODIUM IN GENEVA WITH HIS JACKET?
Sure, some will say it was a trivial moment compared to all the media hype and furor over some the President’s remarks. Still, in my mind the optic of the President’s jacket on the floor didn’t play very well on a world stage.
President Biden was speaking rather eloquently at the concluding news conference about the meeting he had just had with Russian President Putin.
President Biden was addressing all the major issues that were on the table, when Biden became so overheated, he had to take off his jacket.
It was that hot in Geneva. Not the summit politics, the local temperature.
But what was he to do with his jacket after he removed it? Obviously, this was an unscripted moment.
Awkwardly, President Biden could find no place to hang it on the lectern, which he tried to do unsuccessfully, until he had no choice but to drop it on the floor beside him.
I couldn’t help wondering with all the State Department personnel, Secret Service and presidential aides apparently nearby, not to mention the hordes of media, couldn’t someone have stepped over and taken the President’s suit jacket, so it didn’t have to go on the floor?
It was probably a trivial moment following the mega-meeting between the leaders of two of the most powerful nations on earth, yet it wasn’t a very graceful when President Biden seemed to have no one around to spare him from such an awkward optic.
Other than that, the meeting was described by the two leaders as a positive, efficient, businesslike start of hopefully a successful strategic dialogue.
Now what’s the strategy to clean the President’s suit jacket? In the interest of a cleaner global diplomacy, how about asking a Russian drycleaners?
Besides an inveterate blogger, Tom Madden is an author of countless published articles and five books, including his latest, WORDSHINE MAN, available this summer on Amazon. He is the founder and CEO of TransMedia Group, an award-winning public relations firm serving clients worldwide since 1981 and has conducted remarkably successful media campaigns and crisis management for America’s largest companies and organizations.
