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true true true

'Can I Carry The Empty Ones?' Pence Draws Backlash After PPE Delivery Joke

By Emma Atkinson

Posted May 8, 2020

A screenshot of a user-generated C-SPAN video in which Vice President Mike Pence delivers PPE.

A screenshot of a C-SPAN video in which Vice President Mike Pence delivers PPE to a Virginia nursing home. (C-Span User Clip Screenshot)

Vice President Mike Pence has come under fire after video of him delivering personal protective equipment (PPE) to a Virginia nursing home caught him asking to carry empty boxes "for the camera."

The former Indiana governor visited the Woodbine Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center in Alexandria, Virginia Thursday to deliver PPE from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In a video provided by C-SPAN, Pence is seen unloading boxes of PPE from a van and wheeling them to the door of the building.

After unloading, he points to some remaining boxes in the van, only to be told that they were empty.

"Can I carry the empty ones, just for the camera?" he asks. People laugh.

"Absolutely," a man responds. "They're a lot easier."

It is unclear if the boxes Pence unloaded earlier in the video were also empty.

He then speaks to the gathered crowd.

The incident begins around the 9-minute mark in the video below.

WFIU has reached out to Pence's office for a comment.

This story will be updated.

For the latest news and resources about COVID-19, bookmark our Coronavirus In Indiana page here.

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