President Joe Biden, when speaking at the Governors Ball Dinner in the White House’s State Dining Room on the night of February 24, tried to use a quote from Abraham Lincoln to make a point about remaining united as a country. However, despite saying he wanted to get it “exactly right,” Biden proceeded to butcher it terribly, stumbling his way through the quote.
The quote came as Biden began his speech by encouraging some form of unity between red and blue, saying, “You know, let me just say that we have a — we have a — a lot to do together. The thing that makes me feel good about having the governors here is there is still the tradition of doing things together. We fight like hell. We make sure that we get our points across. But at the end of the day, we know who we work for. The objective is to get things done.”
Continuing, President Biden then stumbled his way into trying to quote Lincoln. He haltingly said, as Lincoln’s portrait looked on from behind him, “And, you know, standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me here, he — he said — and I want to make sure I get the quote exactly right.”
But despite saying he wanted to get the quote “exactly right,” he proceeded to stumble his way through butchering it. Biden said, trying to quote Lincoln, “He said, ‘We — the better angels’ — he said, ‘We must address the counsel — and adjust the better angels of our nature.'”
Continuing, Biden kept the attempts at quotation of Lincoln up, saying, “And we do the — and we do well to remember what else he said. He said, ‘We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends.’ This is in the middle of — this is in the — in the part of the Civil War. He said, ‘We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends. We must not be enemies.’”
For reference, the Lincoln quote he was attempting to use is: “I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
That quote came from March of 1861, when Lincoln was giving his inaugural address as the country looked poised for war and the southern states seceded over his election. At the time he gave the speech, war had not been declared, but was on the horizon.
Watch Biden here:
Shortly afterward, Biden bizarrely spoke about President Xi of China out of the blue, saying, “And, you know, it seems to me that — I’ll conclude by saying, I — I’ve spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping — someone whom I have a great deal of difference with. And I was — when I was vice president, President — my — my president was — told me that he wanted me to get to know Xi Jinping because it was clear he was going to be the head of Russia — of — of China and that he — we had a — we were having problems with Russia at the time and other countries as well. And so, what he said was, “Get to know him. He’s going to be there.” I — and he couldn’t because he was the president, and he couldn’t travel. So, I traveled 17,000 miles with him throughout the country — our country and — and in — in China, as well.”
"*" indicates required fields