Biden fumbles fentanyl death data again after SOTU hecklers blame him, China

WASHINGTON — President Biden’s apparent lack of knowledge about the fentanyl crisis — and the killer drug’s ties to China — was on display once again Friday when he grossly misstated the US death rate.

Just three days after hecklers at the State of the Union speech blamed China and his lack of action for the tragic toll, Biden told a gathering of the nation’s governors at the White House that “thousands of Americans are dying every day from fentanyl” — when the actual figure is roughly 200.

Republicans accuse Biden of not paying enough attention to the scourge and last month Biden wildly undercounted fentanyl deaths, saying while in Mexico that the drug “has killed 100,000 Americans so far” — when there were about 196,000 fentanyl deaths from 2018 to 2021 and elevated 2022 figures may push the five-year toll to nearly 300,000.

The matter emerged as one of the most acrimonious points in the annual presidential speech to Congress Tuesday when Biden, whose family has extensive business relationships in top fentanyl exporter China, mentioned the crisis as a potential area of bipartisan common ground.

“Fentanyl is killing more than 70,000 Americans a year,” Biden began, provoking indignant outbursts.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) shouted a reminder that the drug was from “China,” while two male voices shouted at the president, “It’s your fault” — though it was unclear if they were the same person or two different men.

“So let’s launch a major surge to stop fentanyl production, end the sale and trafficking, with more drug detection machines, inspection of cargo to stop pills and powder at the border,” Biden continued — without any direct mention of the source nation of the chemicals.

Biden mentioned fentanyl trafficking last month to Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, but he conspicuously did not do so in opening public remarks at his first in-person meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in November.

The topic of Chinese fentanyl exports was also omitted from a White House readout of the private portion of the Biden-Xi meeting, though Biden aides later claimed he mentioned it behind closed doors.

Fentanyl is used in prescription drugs to treat severe pain, but according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, a dose the size of roughly 10 grains of table salt can be lethal. It’s increasingly mixed into non-opioid illicit drugs such as cocaine and into counterfeit prescriptions, killing unwitting users.

Republicans have accused Biden of being too soft on China — including with his handling last week of a Chinese surveillance balloon that traversed the country before being shot down off South Carolina’s coast — and question whether his family’s finances are the reason.

“When you look at the Biden balloon that came across the country for a week and you look at how he changed from calling China an adversary and confronting China, as [former] President [Donald] Trump did, to calling China a partner and a competitor — how much has that been influenced by the Biden family’s corrupt business deals?” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) told The Post on Tuesday.

Business records suggest first son Hunter Biden still owns a 10% stake in Chinese state-backed BHR Partners, which says it manages $2.1 billion in assets, despite his father’s insistence there would be no family-business-related conflicts of interest during his presidency.

Hunter Biden co-founded BHR Partners in 2013 within weeks of joining then-Vice President Biden aboard Air Force Two on an official trip to Beijing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Hunter introduced his dad to BHR CEO Jonathan Li and Joe Biden later wrote college recommendation letters for Li’s children.

Hunter Biden’s attorney Chris Clark said in late 2021 that the BHR stake had been divested, but neither he nor the White House has provided further information on the supposed transaction.

Joe Biden also allegedly was involved in Hunter and first brother Jim Biden’s venture with CEFC China Energy, a firm reputed to be a cog in Beijing’s “Belt and Road” foreign influence campaign. A May 13, 2017, email recovered from Hunter Biden’s laptop said the “big guy” would get 10% of that deal.

Former Hunter Biden business partner Tony Bobulinski says he discussed the deal with Joe Biden, and Bobulinski and another former Hunter Biden partner, James Gilliar, identified Joe Biden as the “big guy.”

Hunter and Jim Biden earned $4.8 million from CEFC China Energy in 2017 and 2018, according to the Washington Post’s later review of Hunter Biden’s laptop documents. An October 2017 email identifies Joe Biden as a participant in a call about CEFC’s attempt to purchase US natural gas.

Congressional Republicans led by Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) in October and again in December asked Biden to meet to discuss fentanyl while blaming him for not doing more to stop the influx of the drug.

“[F]amilies’ pleas to the administration to step up their fight against the fentanyl crisis have fallen on deaf ears,” Banks and seven other House Republicans wrote to Biden. “We respectfully request a meeting so that we can discuss solutions to the fentanyl crisis, discuss what we learned from constituents … and share with you a box of obituaries, pictures and letters from grieving loved ones who want you to see the real-life impact your refusal to address this crisis is having on families throughout our country.”

White House drug czar Rahul Gupta told reporters on a briefing call Tuesday that Chinese labs are the primary source of illegal fentanyl, which is largely hauled into the US by Mexican cartels — though it also is smuggled through other countries and via the international mail system.

Gupta said, “We have very specific asks of [the Chinese government] to take action that we know would -— will significantly reduce, if not eliminate, that shipping of precursor chemicals, but also at the same time to ensure that where the production happens of fentanyl, which is mostly in Mexico, that we’re working with the Mexican authorities and the leadership there.”

Biden also has taken heat from Republicans for not pushing harder to determine the origins of COVID-19, which killed more than 1 million Americans. US spy agencies assessed in August 2021 that a lab leak in Wuhan, China, was one of two “plausible” explanations, but Biden has said very little about the matter since then.

Trump, who is seeking a 2024 election rematch against Biden, has floated forcing China to pay $50 trillion in “reparations” for the pandemic, and as president regularly boasted that he pressured Xi into cracking down on fentanyl, though US deaths continued to increase nonetheless.