President Biden recently ended a pro-gun control speech with the cryptic remark “God save the Queen,” an odd statement given that his speech did not take place in the UK and Queen Elizabeth II is long dead, with Charles III having had his coronation. Watch that wild moment here:
Biden Ends Speech With ‘God Save The Queen’
1. Queen Elizabeth II died last year.
2. There is no queen of England no more as the head of the monarchy is now King Charles III
3. He was speaking in front of gun safety advocates, so naturally everyone was left confused.
4. This… pic.twitter.com/W5garaEUrM
— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 17, 2023
As you can see, he was pointing around and led off of the stage near-immediately after the “God save the Queen, man” remark.
And that’s not a deepfake. The comment was included in the official White House transcript of Biden’s speech at the National Safer Communities Summit. It came at the very end of the speech, with the president saying (emphasis ours):
If that’s the truth, now, don’t make a lie — (laughter) — As that — as that scene in the John Wayne movie, “Don’t make me a dog-faced, lying pony soldier.” (Laughter.) All right, well, I tell you what — here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to ask the White House photographer to come up. And what I’m going to do is I’m going to stand — I can’t — I usually shake everybody’s hand. But I’m going to stand in front of each section. No, I really mean it. And then — and if you can see the camera, they can see you. And it’s the least consequential part of this whole meeting for you, I promise. All right? God save the Queen, man. (Applause.)
Commenting on the incident, Todd Gillman, the White House correspondent for The Dallas Morning News, said, “Several of you have asked me why he might have said that. I have no idea. Other pooler likewise have no idea.”
Atlantic Deputy Editor Yoni Appelbaum, commenting on the situation and attempting to add a bit of context to it, said, “Biden has the extremely odd habit of ending his remarks with cryptic phrases whose significance is mostly legible only to him. ‘God save the queen’ is also what he said right after certifying Trump’s election in 2017. He seems to use it to mean something like, ‘God help us all.‘”
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Biden has the extremely odd habit of ending his remarks with cryptic phrases whose significance is mostly legible only to him. "God save the queen" is also what he said right after certifying Trump's election in 2017. He seems to use it to mean something like, "God help us all." https://t.co/JkwD7LMSF5
— Yoni Appelbaum (@YAppelbaum) June 16, 2023
Though Biden’s “God save the Queen, Man” remark drew the most attention given that it was the most absurd comment he made and taken by many as evidence of his senility, arguably the most worrisome moment of the speech came when he called for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” and “high-capacity magazines,” saying:
Let me say that again: We can’t let that just become another statistic. Guns, the number one killer of children
in the United States of America? Folks, it’s time once again that we banned AR-15 rifle-style weapon. (Applause.) High-capacity magazines — they’re not only a weapon of war, they’re the single biggest driver of profits for the gun industry. That’s why they’re selling them. Profit, profit, profit. The single biggest. As I said, we did it once before, in ’94, and 10 years after that, the ban was — mass shootings went down significantly — the number of mass shootings. That’s — when the ban expired, mass shootings tripled. But let the ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines come back into vogue.
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video