US President, Joe Biden, wore the campaign cap of Donald Trump, the Republican party candidate, on Wednesday.
The action headlined another round of discussion between Democrats and Republicans as the campaign for the presidential election scheduled for November gets intense.
The incident happened at an event commemorating the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
During a visit to firefighters in Pennsylvania near where one of the four hijacked planes crashed, videos showed the president having a friendly chat with a Trump supporter before they swapped headgear.
In the video, the president offered the Trump supporter who donned a campaign cap another hat with the presidential seal on it, saying he would autograph it.
The man then asks Biden if he would sign it with his name on it.
“I don’t remember my name, I’m slow,” Biden joked, in apparent reference to criticisms that have trailed his mental alertness after his poor debate performance with Trump.
After an exchange about his age, Biden hands the man the autographed cap and offers to trade it for the Trump hat, which he wore briefly, drawing cheers from the crowd.
The action immediately drew comments from social media users, with Trump’s campaign thanking Biden for the “support”.
However, the White House issued a statement to say the gesture was a way to underline the unity theme of the day.
“As a gesture, he gave a hat to a Trump supporter who then said that in the same spirit, POTUS should put on his Trump cap,” Andrew Bates, White House deputy press secretary, said.
The incident happened hours after Trump had joked on the debate stage about sending Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential nominee, a ‘Make America Great Again (MAGA)’ hat.
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