Joe Biden Put on a Trump Hat at a 9/11 Event as a Gesture of Bipartisan Unity

Although he is no longer running for president, it remains true that Joe Biden is determined to keep Donald Trump from returning to the White House. Given that that is one of his goals, it may seem strange to see video of the current president wearing a hat that says "TRUMP" in giant letters on the front.

Biden donned the hat during an event commemorating 9/11, and the video from it has been trending online. Here's what we know about why he put the hat on, and why the video is suddenly everywhere.

During a 9/11 commemoration event at a firehouse near Shanksville, Penn., which is where the United 93 flight crashed on Sept. 11, 2001, Biden was seen talking to people who had attended the event, including a man in a Trump hat. Biden handed the man a presidential hat, and the man asked him to autograph it.

“Do you remember your name?” the man said to Biden, making a crack about his age.

“I don’t remember my name. I’m slow," Biden said in response as he prepared to sign the hat. “You’re an old fart,” the man says. "Yeah, I know, I’m an old guy,” Biden said in reply. “I know you would know about that."

They both laughed at that, and the crowd seemed to be enjoying the back-and-forth as well. Biden then asked for the man's Trump hat, and the man gave it to him, asking if Biden would like his autograph. “Hell no," Biden replied.

The crowd then urged Biden to put the hat on, and after initially seeming reluctant, Biden obliged, putting the hat on over a hat from the fire station that he was already wearing.

“I’m proud of you now,” the man told him, and Biden then replied, “Just remember, no eating dogs and cats." That last crack was a reference to a false conspiracy spreading on the right that suggests that Haitian immigrants are eating pets in some Ohio communities.

Biden then walked away still wearing the hat, and the person who posted the video said that the president kept it, which is definitely a power move.

The video of the moment has gone viral as a reminder of the ways that two people on opposite sides of the political divide, one of whom is the president, can still share a common decency and humanity with one another.

“At the Shanksville Fire Station, @POTUS spoke about the country’s bipartisan unity after 9/11 and said we needed to get back to that,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates wrote on X. “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. He briefly wore it.”

Of course, Trump's campaign tried to capitalize on the moment, thanking Biden for his support. It seems unlikely that Biden's decision to wear the hat will change much about the fundamentals of the race, though.