President Joe Biden’s effort to improve voters’ view of his mental fitness took a hit when the White House corrected numerous errors from a recent speech.
In his address to the NAACP on Sunday, the official transcript fixed several mistakes ― some of which conservative media jumped on, Mediaite reported. Polling has shown that voters are more concerned about Biden’s acuity than Republican rival Donald Trump while both rack up blunders on the campaign trail. They’ll square off in a debate in June.
In talking to the NAACP, Biden mistakenly implied he was vice president during the “pandemic,” which was crossed out while “recession” was added in brackets. He referred to “insurrectionists” as “irrectionists,” which was amended, and said his administration was “cracking down on landlords who keep rents down.” The “who” was crossed out and replaced by a “to.”
Biden told the civil rights group he was “humbled to receive this ‘organisation,’” when he meant “award,” the transcript showed.
He also committed a double gaffe on the matter of insurance premiums. He said his administration saved families “$800,000” a year, quickly changed it to $8,000 during the speech ― but the transcript altered it to $800.
At one point he called the group the “NAAC” and collected other small errors on usage and spelling.
Biden has talked about his battles with a stutter, which can cause missteps in speech, but it’s unclear whether the recent rash of blunders has anything to do with it. HuffPost has reached out to the White House for comment.
Biden called out Trump to debate him last week after the former president repeatedly challenged him.
The president’s former press secretary, Jen Psaki, applauded Biden for being proactive in aggressively initiating the two scheduled debates and the ground rules for them.