In a strange and awkward moment during last week’s presidential debate, Joe Biden, reacting to the president on the Trump taxes issue, said, “Inshallah.” Huh?

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It’s not like Biden goes around dropping foreign phrases at the drop of a hat. In fact, his contrived Joe Sixpack message doesn’t really work with uttering foreign bon mots. And an Arab phrase that has many meanings is a strange choice anyway. It is also doubtful it is part of his regular vocabulary. So, what’s he up to?

CNN, of all news outlets, reports, “During one of the more charged moments of the chaotic US presidential debate, former Vice President Joe Biden dropped a phrase from everyday Muslim and Arab vocabulary and lit up the internet. Pressing President Donald Trump on when the American public would get to see his long-anticipated tax returns, Biden questioned: ‘When? Inshallah?’ In certain vernacular, “inshallah” serves as a non-committal response to a question.”

He uses a multiple meaning Arab and Muslim phrase for, voter outreach? Well, he probably has that vote locked up. So why then?

Recalling he was the veep in an administration that was absurdly pro-Arab and anti-Israel, remembering that the same administration of the disgraced 44th president sent last minute palates of cash to the Iranians the night before they left office, one conclusion comes to mind: It was a dog whistle to his former, and perhaps current, radical Arab and Islamist pals.

A “dog whistle” is a political message aimed to curry favor with a specific group or send a covert message. But it usually has a bit of plausible deniability. Not this one. This was dropped awkwardly yet very deliberately to a Muslim and Arab audience. But some targets did not appreciate it.

“It’s so disheartening that the best thing the Biden campaign seems to be able to offer Muslim Americans in the midst of an uptick in islamophobic violence is an offhand, completely inappropriately applied ‘inshallah’ in the debate,” tweeted political activist Meriam Masmoudi after the line was unpacked.

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One wonders what pro at Biden headquarters came up with this ploy? Were they in debate prep and one aide said, “Sir, could you drop an inshallah in there for Muslim voters?” And Biden likely responded, “Insha-what?”

Why not a “sacre bleu!” a “claro que si?” or a “was machen sie?” Nope. Not in the picture. If the Biden campaign thinks it will be magically embraced by voters of any ethnicity by that line they are mistaken. But I bet the mullahs in Tehran, Hezbollah in Gaza, and the Trump-blasted to smithereens remnants of ISIS are highly amused at Biden’s lame attempt at sucking up to them. Yup, no doubt a real knee slapper in Damascus, as they gleefully hope for a Biden administration.