© AFP / Andrew Caballero-ReynoldsJoe Biden speaks during a campaign event in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 18, 2024
US President Joe Biden has implored his supporters to choose "freedom over democracy," in the latest of a long series of gaffes and verbal blunders. Conservative pundits have viewed the incident as more proof that the 81-year-old is unfit for office.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Thursday, Biden rattled off a string of buzzwords as he asked voters whether they would choose him over former President Donald Trump in November's presidential election.
"Are you ready to choose unity over division? Dignity over demolition? Truth over lies? Are you ready to choose freedom over democracy? Because that's America," he exclaimed.
Biden's "freedom over democracy" line drew a mix of laughs and applause from the crowd, and ridicule from conservative pundits and influencers.
"When people were concerned about Ronald Reagan having cognitive decline near the end of his second term, it was nothing like this," the Conservative Brief wrote on X (formerly Twitter). "Look in the mirror and ask yourself, truthfully, if this is the man you want in charge of our security, our economy, and our country for another four years?"
Biden has a long history of similar slip-ups, and was ridiculed for a 2019 campaign speech in which he declared: "We choose unity over division. We choose science over fiction. We choose truth over facts."
Republicans insist that Biden's cognitive faculties are declining, and that this decline has accelerated over his three years in the White House. Video footage of the president shaking hands with imaginary people, getting lost when out in public, and telling reporters that he had just met with long-dead world leaders have served to bolster their case.
In February, US Justice Department prosecutor Robert Hur opted not to charge Biden for mishandling classified documents, noting in a report that the president suffered extreme memory lapses and didn't possess the "mental state of willfulness" needed to commit a crime.
Comment: But still okay to (ostensibly) to have his finger on the nuclear button?
An Associated Press poll last month found that six out of ten American adults doubt Biden's mental capacity to serve as president.
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