President Biden apologizes for struggles with teleprompter during speech at UN conference

President Joe Biden apologized after struggling with the teleprompter during a speech made to the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Adam Vaughn, an editor at The Times, tweeted while reporting on the conference that Biden was “stumbling over the words in quite a lot of this speech.”

Greg Price, who is a journalist for The Daily Caller, posted a video of Biden struggling to read a quote from the teleprompter before telling the audience “I was reading the quote. Sorry.”

Biden has been criticized in the past for solely relying on teleprompters for his speeches. In a speech last week about political violence, Biden gave the wrong date of Election Day.

Conservative commentator Benny Johnson mocked Biden, saying on Twitter: “The teleprompter is UNDEFEATED against Joe Biden.”

Former President Donald Trump also reacted to his mix-up, telling a crowd in Sioux City, “You think it’s easy being up here with this wind? And I’ve got these stupid teleprompters waving like a flag. You think this is easy doing this? … I’m gonna get seasick, I’m getting seasick!”

He added that Biden should “just give it up.”

Biden’s manner of speech has gone on for years now. Even now-deceased comedian Robin Williams made fun of “rambling Joe Biden” in a widely shared clip from a 2009 HBO show.

While Biden has discussed having a stutter while growing up, many critics have suggested that his history of gaffes is due to “cognitive decline.”

During a campaign rally in California last week, Biden noticed a sign held by a teen attendee which read “Thank you for having a stutter.”

“Oh, God love you,” Biden said after seeing the sign, according to Newsweek. “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.”

“And by the way, I say to any stutterer, It cannot define you,” Biden added. “It will not define you.”