“End of quote."
(Picture: Photo courtesy @disclosetv/Twitter)President Joe Biden appeared to have a Ron Burgundy moment when he read every word off a teleprompter— including the “end of quote” direction.
But the full version of his speech showed that he was, in fact, quoting someone, and it wasn’t quite the gaffe that the edited clip suggested.
In a video clip uploaded to Disclose.tv’s Twitter, the commander-in-chief spoke at the White House about “innovation” and said the following:
“A lot of innovation because of the actions we’ve taken things have begun to change, end of quote.”
But the full quote was actually: “And, by the way, you may have heard the CEO of Walmart yesterday on the steps we’ve taken.
“He said, and I quote, ‘The combination of private enterprise and government working together has been really successful.’ He went on to say, ‘All the way through the supply chain, there’s… a lot of innovation.’ Because of the actions we’ve taken, things have begun to change. End of quote.”
If you are unfamiliar with the Ron Burgundy reference, here’s a brief synopsis.
Ron Burgundy (played by Will Ferrell) is a television anchor from the comedy The Anchorman who was reading his name off a teleprompter that included a typo of a question mark instead of a period, which led him to say it with a questioning tone.
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People in the post’s comments were quick to jump on the apparent blunder.
“I’m Ron Burgundy?” someone said.
“Just awkwardly itch your nose and nobody will notice that you have no idea what you’re talking about,” another added.
But while this was not, in fact, an error on Biden’s part, he does have a bit of a track record of public speaking flubs.
Last year, he appeared to lose track of his spot on the teleprompter while describing his approach to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Before embarking on an awkward ad-lib, Biden communicated to his team with a hand signal that something was awry.
Biden's teleprompter broke pic.twitter.com/kgGqYV6wl2
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) March 23, 2020
“And, in addition to that, in addition to that we have to make sure that we, we are in a position that we are, well met me go the second thing, I’ve spoken enough on that,” Biden said.
This article was amended on 7 December 2021. It had originally suggested that Mr Biden had made a slip, but that was not the case.
