Throughout Biden’s presidency, he has delivered many slip-ups and gaffes in his public speaking engagements. As the presidential election approaches, 81-year-old Joe Biden’s mental and physical health have become increasingly scrutinized.
During recent remarks from Biden at North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) Legislative Conference, the president appeared to read off the teleprompter verbatim, misunderstanding that the word “pause” was a cue for him to stop speaking and let the audience react to his statements.
RNC Research, an X account run by the Republican National Committee, uploaded a clip from the event where Biden says, “Imagine what we can do next.” He proceeds to read directly off of the teleprompter in a seemingly confused manner, “Four more years? Pause?”
The American Tribune has reported on several other recent occasions where Biden had difficulty maneuvering his teleprompter. During a recent speech celebrating Greek Independence Day, Biden appeared to fall behind the pace of his teleprompter, requesting the operator to “move all that back.”
Furthermore, Biden was “defeated” by his teleprompter during a Wisconsin speech several weeks ago, where it appeared Biden had trouble reading his lines while simultaneously making them sound natural and cohesive.
During the speech at the trade conference, Biden spent a considerable amount of time addressing the economy and his stance toward unions. Former President Trump and Biden have intensely battled for blue-collar union voters.
At one point during the speech, Biden discussed billionaires and taxes, suggesting the wealthiest Americans only pay a tax rate of roughly 8 percent, a claim the president constantly touts. However, it has been fact-checked and proven to be misleading as the figure encompasses “unrealized gains” from unsold assets. The actual tax rate that the 400 wealthiest Americans pay is around 23%
“And people thought I was either exaggerating or they just didn’t think it was true. But it’s wrong to have that occur. So I instituted a horrible tax on these guys. (Laughter.) Fifteen percent. That’s less than y’all pay. And guess what? I’ve also proposed — we now have — we’ve gone from 700 billionaires since the pandemic to about 1,000 billionaires in America. You know how much their average tax is? E-I-G-H-T — 8 percent,” Biden said.
“So I think there should be a minimum tax for billionaires. No billionaire should be paying a lower tax rate than a construction worker, a schoolteacher, a firefighter, a cop, a nurse. I mean it. It’s wrong. It’s simply wrong,” Biden continued, doubling down on his tax rhetoric against billionaires.
Biden further addressed his view of the economy, where he supposedly looks at it through the lens of “Scranton” and “Claymont.” Biden said this in an attempt to appeal to the working class more than Wall Street.
“And these guys are saying unless I agree to cut all these programs by 22 percent — which is growing the economy — and cut taxes for the super wealthy and corporations. Folks, America is a not a deadbeat nation. We pay our bills,” he said. “Look, let me close with this. I’m taking too much of you time. There are a lot of folks who look at the world and our economy through the eyes of Wall Street. I’m not one of them. I’m not saying anybody on Wall Street is bad guys. That’s not how I look at the world. I look at the world through the eyes of Scranton and Claymont, Delaware, where I grew up.”
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
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