Republicans cheer Biden suddenly puts on a Trump cap

Joe Biden put on a Donald Trump cap at an event. The reaction from the Republicans was not long in coming.

The headgear didn't look particularly good on him: during a visit to the US state of Pennsylvania, outgoing US President Joe Biden donned a red cap with the words "Trump 2024" on it. The cap is one of the accessories of the election campaign of Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who wants to return to the White House and whom Biden sees as a threat to US democracy.

At a meeting with firefighters in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, to commemorate the September 11 terrorist attacks, a Trump supporter handed Biden his cap. The 81-year-old, who was wearing a black cap himself, took the red one and put it on.

The video of the smiling president with the cap of his political arch-rival enthroned on his head quickly spread across online services. The Trump team reacted immediately: "Thanks for the support, Joe!" the team wrote on the online service X.

Biden gave Trump a cap as a gift

As the deputy press spokesperson for the White House has now explained, the president deliberately reached for the cap. At the fire station, the president spoke about the bipartisan unity that prevailed after the attacks of September 11, 2001, wrote Andrew Bates at X. It was important to get back to that.

As a gesture, the president gave a Trump supporter a cap, Bates wrote. The man had replied that Biden should put on his Trump cap in return. "He wore it briefly."

The president had dropped out of the race for the White House on July 21 because doubts about his mental and physical fitness had grown ever louder. The end of his political career was triggered by a disastrous performance in a TV duel with Trump a month earlier.