President Biden has committed 148 gaffes and verbal stumbles in public comments so far this year, which White House staff have scrambled to fix in official transcripts.
Biden, 81, tripped over his tongue in at least 118 statements, speeches or comments between Jan. 1 and April 24, according to an analysis of White House records reviewed by the Daily Caller — meaning there were more glaring errors to correct than official announcements.
The belated changes have been made either to keep the president’s words in line with public policy stances or change the meaning of his statements entirely.
Last week, Biden read a cue from his teleprompter out loud during a speech at the North America’s Building Trades Unions National Legislative Conference, botching a scripted call for his re-election.
“Folks, imagine what we can do next,” he told the audience. “Four more years. Pause.”
The original White House transcript initially omitted the “pause” and put “inaudible” in its place before correcting it again.
Biden has also given the wrong names or titles for people, places or groups at least 20 times during his remarks — misidentifying the leaders of France, Egypt and Mexico.
Sometimes, staff have edited in words apparently to appease their coalition or align with Biden’s stated reasoning for decisions — including Supreme Court nominations and even his own vice president.
“And look at what these autocrats are doing to limit freedom in their countries. They’re limiting freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, women’s rights, LGB[T]Q rights, people are going to jail, so much more,” a Jan. 5 transcript shows, updating the acronym to reference transgender people.
“I kept my promise to appoint the first Black [woman] Supreme Court justice,” a Feb. 22 campaign reception transcript reads, which was corrected to reflect his choice of Ketanji Brown Jackson. (Two black men, Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas, have previously been appointed to the high court.)
On March 9, White House staff subbed in “historic” in front of Biden’s reference to Vice President Kamala Harris, the first black and south Asian female to ascend to the office.
The president’s loose grasp of numbers has been on display as well, as when he has falsely inflated spending by the executive branch or efforts to vaccinate Americans from COVID-19.
“We vaccinated the vast bulk of America. We got through that pandemic with less than 200 million — with less than 2 million people being vaccinated when I came to office. Today, 720 [270] million Americans have gotten COVID vaccine,” a Jan. 30 campaign speech transcript shows.
The population of America is approximately 335 million, according to US Census Bureau data.
Biden also faltered during his State of the Union Address by claiming “every American voted against” his 2021 American Rescue Plan — when he meant to say “every Republican,” an edited White House transcript shows.
When mentioning a key messaging point earlier in the address on the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot, the president accidentally stated support for “threats to democracy.”
“We must be honest: The threat to democracy must be defended,” Biden declared. The White House later changed “defended” to “defeated.”
But the most notable flub of the night was Biden’s mispronunciation of the name of 22-year-old Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, who authorities say was killed by a migrant who illegally entered the US during his presidency.
Biden called her “Lincoln” — but the speech’s transcript still shows it as “Lanken” and corrects it to “Laken.”
All told, the outlet found 13 emendations to Biden’s most recent State of the Union transcript. None were made to former President Donald Trump’s last address to Congress in February 2020.
Likewise at the National Prayer Breakfast this year, Biden’s words were massaged eight times in the transcript, whereas Trump’s last speech at the event in 2020 included only one altered quote.
Other statements and speeches by the 45th president during the first few months of 2020 do include edits to mispronunciations of some words, but Trump stumbled over less significant words and did so less frequently, according to the Caller’s analysis.
The mixups amended by Biden’s staff don’t include dubious suggestions about his personal history or career in public service — including his recent suggestion that cannibals ate his uncle during World War II.
“He got shot down in an area where there were a lot of cannibals in New Guinea at the time,” Biden told reporters on April 17 of his mother’s brother, Army Air Corps aviator Ambrose Finnegan. “They never recovered his body.”
US military records revealed that the plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean on May 14, 1944, and Finnegan was not rescued from the wreck — and Papua New Guinea’s prime minister later chastised the president for the undeserved comment.
Later the same day, Biden screwed up another attack on congressional Republicans accusing him of striking a permissive stance toward China.
“I’ve always believed we’ve [they’ve] got it all wrong. America is rising. And we have the best economy in the world, which we do,” according to an April 17 transcript of his remarks on protecting US steel and shipbuilding from unfair Chinese trade practices.
The Caller’s analysis excluded grammatical errors that did not change the meaning of the president’s statements, such as adding an “s” to make a noun plural.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
