President Biden made a TV gaffe on Friday that could have been straight out of the Will Ferrell comedy classic “Anchorman” — when he appeared to mouth “repeat the line” while reading a speech directly from a televangelist. Critics saw this as the president mistakenly reading a script aloud as he tried to give a speech at the White House rallying his fellow Democrats to come out and vote after the Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade. The apparent mistake led to a firestorm of mockery on the Internet — led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who tweeted: “Whoever controls the teleprompter is the real President!” The billionaire also shared a meme of his “Anchorman” character Ron Burgundy, who was known for gaffes like saying “Go f–k yourself, San Diego” when scrolling through the prompter as a gag, and who in one scene reads the line, “Am I Ron Burgundy?” as a question because someone accidentally put a question mark in the feed. After the apparent mistake, the White House went into damage control mode — something that happens increasingly often when Biden speaks — denying it ever happened and claiming that Biden had actually said, “Let me repeat the line.” Video of the speech shows Biden apparently struggling to get through the address, faltering at points and correcting himself when citing the SCOTUS’s conservative majority opinion in the case that overturned Roe v. Wade. “Women have no voting or political power,” Biden said. “It’s worth noting that the percentage of women who register to vote and vote is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do” — end of quote. “Repeat the line,” he says then points to the video. “Women are not without electoral and/or political or.” He backs off, then corrects himself, saying: “Let me be precise — not and/or — ‘or political power’.” Elon Musk shared a meme of his “Anchorman” character Ron Burgundy, who was known for gaffes, including “Go fight, San Diego, after the latest Biden gaffe. Photo by JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images “That’s another way of saying that you, the women of America, can determine the outcome of this issue,” Biden says. User Greg Price released the clip on Twitter, saying: “Joe Biden accidentally read the part on the operator that says ‘repeat the line’ when they wanted him to say the line again. That prompted White House Assistant Press Secretary Emilie Simons to respond: “No. He said, “let me repeat that line.” The White House transcript of Biden’s remarks reads: “Let me repeat the line,” and some dismissed the claim that it was not supposed to have been said. “A telemarketer wouldn’t say ‘repeat the line,’” tweeted the No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen podcast. “He would just… repeat the line. That’s the whole point of a telemarketer.” Musk, who has previously taken jabs at Biden over telecommuter snafus, also went after the president with another “Anchorman”-themed meme showing a scene with a producer in a control room warning: “For the last time, whatever you put in this prompter, Burgundy will read.”
