The Flap Over Biden’s Comment About 2 Fentanyl Deaths Obscures Prohibition’s Role in Causing Them

Did President Joe Biden laugh about “a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl”? No, he did not. But the context of his controversial remarks reveals the bipartisan complicity in the prohibitionist policies that lead to senseless deaths like these.

On Tuesday, the Republican-controlled House Committee on Homeland Security held a hearing that was framed as an indictment of the Biden administration’s border policies. One of the witnesses was Rebecca Kiessling, a Rochester Hills, Michigan, lawyer whose sons Caleb, 20, and Kyler, 18, died in July 2020 after swallowing counterfeit Percocet pills that contained fentanyl. Although that hazard was created by the war on drugs, Kiessling blames the government for failing to wage that war aggressively enough.

“Law enforcement made it clear to me that this fentanyl came from Mexico,” Kiessling said during her tearful, heartbreaking testimony. “I didn’t know that my boys were taking anything that could kill them. They didn’t think that they were either. They thought that they were safe with pills.”

Kiessling urged the government to “do something” about the influx of illicit fentanyl. “If we had Chinese troops lining up along our southern border with weapons aimed at our people, with weapons of mass destruction aimed at our cities, you damn well know you would do something about it,” she said. “We have a weather balloon from China going across the country. Nobody died, and everybody’s freaking out about it. But 100,000 die every year, and nothing’s being done. Not enough is being done….This is a war. Act like it.”

Although Kiessling said “this should not be politicized,” that is exactly what the Republicans who control the committee were doing, and she lent support to their efforts. “You talk about welcoming those crossing our border, seeking protection,” she said. “You’re welcoming drug dealers across our border. You’re giving them protection. You’re not protecting our children.”

After the hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R–Ga.) took that implied criticism of the Biden administration a step further. “Listen to this mother, who lost two children to fentanyl poisoning, tell the truth about both of her son’s [sic] murders because of the Biden administrations [sic] refusal to secure our border and stop the Cartel’s [sic] from murdering Americans everyday by Chinese fentanyl,” Greene wrote on Twitter.

Since Caleb and Kyler Kiessling died six months before Biden took office, of course, it is logically impossible that his border policies had anything to do with their deaths. That’s the point Biden was making when he addressed a meeting of House Democrats in Baltimore on Wednesday night.

Greene “was very specific recently, saying that a mom, a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl, that I killed her sons,” Biden said. “Well, the interesting thing: That fentanyl they took came during the last administration.” Then he laughed.

Biden’s laughter offended Kiessling. “This is how you speak about the death of my sons?” she said in a Facebook video. “Because a congresswoman misspoke? You mock the loss of my sons? How dare you? What is the matter with you? Almost every Democrat on the committee offered condolences. They at least had the decency to do that. You can’t even do that? You have to mock my pain?”

In context, it is clear that Biden, who described Kiessling as “a poor mother who lost two kids to fentanyl,” was not mocking her pain or the loss of her sons. He was very clearly mocking Greene. His lighthearted demeanor nevertheless was insensitive and tone-deaf, as Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) pointed out on Twitter.

“@POTUS needs to apologize for this immediately,” Lee tweeted. “No person, let alone the president of the United States, laughs when speaking about a mother who lost two sons to fentanyl poisoning.”

Other Republicans went further. Jake Schneider, director of rapid response for the Republican National Committee, called Biden “a disgusting person,” adding, “Losing children to