Biden Awkwardly Prods a Black Man to Come Back On Stage: ‘Doesn’t He Look Like Barack?’

That was… interesting. And awkward.

Former President Joe Biden insisted a Black Syracuse University leader looked just like former President Barack Obama before prodding the man to return to the stage so he could chum it up with him during a portrait unveiling ceremony on Tuesday.

Syracuse’s chairman of the board of trustees, Jeffrey M. Scruggs, had just finished honoring Biden a few minutes earlier before the ex-president took the stage. Biden then marveled at how much Scruggs looked like Obama — at least in his view.

“By the way, I always want to turn around [to] one guy and say ‘Barack, what are you doing?'” Biden said.

The comment drew a big laugh from the attendees. Biden then urged him to walk back to the podium, pointing at Scruggs and telling him six times to return.

“Come here, come here, come here, come here, come here, come here,” Biden said.

Scruggs chuckled and walked back to the podium.

“Doesn’t he look like Barack!?” Biden claimed to the crowd. Scruggs smiled, shook his head and raised his left arm in a semi-shrug. He didn’t appear to love the comment, but he took it in stride.

“As they say, you done good, fella,” Biden then told him as the two shook hands.

“Well, I try,” Scruggs quipped. He laughed a bit, then left the stage.

The bizarre exchange happened during the portrait unveiling ceremony on Tuesday afternoon. Biden’s painting will be showcased at Syracuse’s law school, from which he graduated in 1968.

“President Biden, welcome home,” Scruggs had told him a few minutes earlier during his remarks to the crowd.

Beyond being a Syracuse grad, Scruggs said Biden’s connections to the university “run deep and long” — pointing to Biden’s 2009 commencement speech and video messages to the classes of 2021 and 2023.

Biden had “offered perspective and inspiration to graduates facing an uncertain world in a global pandemic,” Scruggs said about those two video messages.

The 46th president returned the kind words by comparing him to Obama a few minutes later.

Watch above via Spectrum News 1 in Syracuse.

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