Biden Mentions Global Warming When Talking About Building Collapse: ‘We Don’t Have Any Firm Proof Of What’s Happened’

President Joe Biden mentioned during a press conference on Thursday the alleged concerns that members of the Miami community had about global warming while he was talking to families who have been impacted by the Surfside Condo collapse, which has killed at least 18 with 145 more still missing.

“We don’t have any firm proof of what’s happened,” Biden said. “There’s all kinds of rational speculation about whether or not rebars are, were, were rusted, whether or not the cement, whether it’s limestone or not, and whether or not, but a lot of the, a lot of the families who survived talked about how upset they were that in the last years that they’ve been here, how there was one condominium complex built across the street and a road was purchased. And while they were living there, they would hear the drilling, and they feel their building moving and shaking.”“There are all kinds of discussions about whether or not they thought that water level rising, what impact it had,” he added. “And interesting to me, I didn’t raise it, but how many of the survivors and how many of the families talked about the impact of global warming. How much, and they [don’t] know exactly, [but] they talked about sea levels rising and about how, how they were, and and the combination of that and the concern about incoming storms, incoming tropical storms. And so, but I don’t think there is at this point, any definitive judgment as to why it collapsed, and what can be done to prevent it from happening and what other buildings may have to be inspected to determine if they have the same problems.”

WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT:

REPORTER: What did you learn, if anything, about the collapse of the building? Is there anything more you learned from investigators or the FEMA administrators?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT: No, it’s underway. I don’t. And the director of FEMA is with me here, we don’t have any firm proof of what’s happened. There’s all kinds of rational speculation about whether or not rebars are, were, were rusted, whether or not the cement, whether it’s limestone or not, and whether or not, but a lot of the, a lot of the families who survived, talked about how upset they were that in the last years that they’ve been here, how there was one condominium complex built across the street and a road was purchased. And while they were living there, they would hear the drilling, and they feel their building moving and shaking. There are all kinds of discussions about whether or not they thought that water level rising, what impact it had. And interesting to me, I didn’t raise it, but how many of the survivors and how many of the families talked about the impact of global warming. How much, and they [didn’t] know exactly, [but] they talked about sea levels rising and about how, how they were, and and the combination of that and the concern about incoming storms, incoming tropical storms. And so, but I don’t think there is at this point, any definitive judgment as to why it collapsed, and what can be done to prevent it from happening and what other buildings may have to be inspected to determine if they have the same problems.