President Joe Biden stumbled while giving a speech during the annual United Nations Climate Change Conference, sparking another wave of jokes about his “losing record” while reading from teleprompters.
While addressing attendees in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Friday, Biden apologized after struggling to finish a quote displayed on his teleprompter, telling the crowd, “I was reading a quote, sorry.”
Biden’s gaffe was posted on Twitter by former Daily Caller journalist Greg Price and had been viewed over 135,000 times Friday morning.
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Adam Vaughn, the environment editor at The Times, tweeted while reporting on the conference that Biden was “stumbling over the words in quite a lot of this speech.”
A slew of conservative figures on Twitter quickly reposted the clip of Biden’s speech, including Turning Point USA journalist Benny Johnson, who said that “the teleprompter is UNDEFEATED against Joe Biden.”
Danny De Urbina, a content strategist at Arsenal Media Group that works with conservative campaigns, also reposted Biden’s stumble, joking that the score between the president and teleprompters was “73838637” to “0.”
The Citizen Free Press called Biden “a mess” on Twitter, “struggling to read plain English off the teleprompter at UN climate conference.”
Biden has been criticized in the past for relying on teleprompters while delivering speeches, including last week when the president gave the wrong date of Election Day while delivering a speech that condemned political violence ahead of the midterms. The clip was posted later on Twitter by an advisor to Senator Ted Cruz, Steve Guest.
The president has been transparent about struggling with a stutter while growing up, although the speech disorder has often been mocked by his political opponents and has led to some claiming that the 79-year-old president is in a “cognitive decline.“
During a campaign rally in San Diego, California, last week, Biden stopped mid-speech to address a sign from an audience member that read “Thank you for having a stutter.” NBC affiliate KNSD reported that the sign was written by a local teen.
“Oh, God love you,” Biden told the young supporter. “When I was a kid up until, quite frankly, I was in college, I used to stutter. And [a] stutter is a really debilitating thing…it sounds funny but guess what? It makes you feel like an idiot.”
According to a transcript of the speech posted by the White House, audience members shouted back in support of Biden’s story, saying “I love you, Mr. President!” and “You’re not, Joe!”
“And by the way, I say to any stutterer, It cannot define you,” Biden added. “It will not define you.”
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment.
