Former President Joe Biden suffered a humiliating gaffe while trying to pronounce “America” as he criticized the Trump administration at a forum on LGBTQ rights in Washington, DC, Friday afternoon.
The noticeably frail 83-year-old Democrat disastrously bungled the name of the country he’s served for more than five decades during an impassioned moment in his keynote speech.
“I still believe that emerging from the many crises caused by this administration, as we have constantly, none the less, come out stronger, wiser, and more resilient — but we just have to get up,” said Biden who frequently stumbled over his words during his nearly 20-minute remarks.
“As long as we keep the faith, some hope and get back up and remember who in the hell we are — we are the United States of Amerigotit,” he fumbled, before continuing, “That’s who we are. We are the US.”
During the event, hosted by the LGBTQ+ Victory Institute, Biden received the Chris Abele Impact Award, honoring his administration as one of the most inclusive in US history.
In his speech, the aging ex-president, known for his stutter, slammed “MAGA Republicans” for trying to “distort and derail our fight for equality,” accusing President Trump’s administration of turning gay rights into something “scary” and “sinister.”
Biden’s mortifying mishap comes after his health and age became central to political debates during his final year in office.
He faced a firestorm over his cognitive abilities following a disastrous debate performance against President Trump in June 2024, which ultimately prompted him to drop out of the election the next month.
Earlier that year, the former president’s longtime physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, had declared he was “fit to serve” after the then-presumptive Democratic nominee underwent a routine examination in February.
In May, the 46th president publicly announced that he had been diagnosed with an “aggressive” type of prostate cancer that had metastasized to his bones.
Doctors found a “small nodule” on Biden’s prostate and other cancer cells during a medical exam — a Stage 4 diagnosis that went seemingly undetected by his medical team in the White House.
Biden derangement syndrome? Trump pardons Democrat to get back at former president
Cuellar and his wife had been facing bribery and conspiracy charges since last year
President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he was granting full pardons to Texas Representative Henry Cuellar and his wife, Imelda, absolving them of the bribery and conspiracy charges on which they had been indicted by the Department of Justice last year.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump claimed that Cuellar, a Democrat who has represented the Lone Star State’s 28th Congressional district since 2005, had been targeted by predecessor Joe Biden’s administration because of his hawkish stance on immigration issues.
“For years, the Biden Administration weaponized the Justice System against their Political Opponents, and anyone who disagreed with them. One of the clearest examples of this was when Crooked Joe used the FBI and DOJ to ‘take out’ a member of his own Party after Highly Respected Congressman Henry Cuellar bravely spoke out against Open Borders, and the Biden Border ‘Catastrophe,’” Trump said.
He further accused Biden and the Justice Department of having “went after the Congressman, and even the Congressman’s wonderful wife, Imelda, simply for speaking the TRUTH.”
Trump added: “Because of these facts, and others, I am hereby announcing my full and unconditional PARDON of beloved Texas Congressman Henry Cuellar, and Imelda. Henry, I don’t know you, but you can sleep well tonight — Your nightmare is finally over!”
The president’s latest use of the pardon power to undo a high-profile corruption investigation comes more than a year after prosecutors unveiled charges against the Cuellars for allegedly taking nearly $600,000 from a Azerbaijani-controlled company and a Mexican bank.
And the slap back at his predecessor comes one day after a cabinet meeting in which Trump and his secretaries referenced Biden dozens of times.
Prosecutors had alleged that Cuellar and his wife accepted bribes as part of an agreement to advance the interests of Azerbaijan and the bank in the US, according to an indictment.
The money was also allegedly laundered through a series of front companies and middlemen into shell companies owned by Imelda Cuellar.
Among other things, the congressman, who was at one time the co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus allegedly agreed to influence legislation favorable to Azerbaijan and deliver a pro-Azerbaijan speech on the floor of the U.S. House.
A conservative Democrat, Cuellar has long been a target of progressives given his opposition to abortion rights. In 2020 and 2022, Jessica Cisneros staged a primary challenger against him, sending him to a runoff, in which he prevailed both times.
House Democratic leadership has consistently backed him and belive that he is the only Democrat who can win in the heavily Latino and conservative district right on the border. But despite the pardon, Cuellar told reporters that he would not run as a Republican.
He won re-election to the House last year after running opposed in the 2024 Democratic primary.
The longtime border hawk Cuellar has also sharply criticized other Democrats for their comparatively lax policies on immigration and started a coterie of Democrats who support stronger measures called Democrats for Border Security Task Force.
Cuellar’s family also has a prominent presence in his border district. His brother is the sheriff of Webb County while his sister served as a judge for Rio Bravo and Webb Counties. His concentration of power has earned him the nickname “the King Laredo,” where he lives.
In 2022, the FBI raided Cuellar’s congressional office in Laredo and his home. His attorney at that time said the congressman was not the target of that investigation.
That search was part of a broader investigation related to Azerbaijan that saw FBI agents serve a raft of subpoenas and conduct interviews in Washington DC, and Texas.
Trump’s claim that Biden-era prosecutors targeted Cuellar as justification for pardoning him is just the latest example of him taking steps to undo high-profile prosecutions brought against public figures during the previous administration.
Last week, the president freed former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez from federal prison with a full pardon absolving him of the drug trafficking and weapons charges on which he had been convicted by a jury and sentenced to 45 years in prison by a federal judge.
Hernandez, whose brother Juan Antonio “Tony” Hernández was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison in 2021 in Manhattan federal court for his own conviction on drug charges, had used his authority as Honduras’ head of state to give drug traffickers aid from the Honduran military and national police forces as they trafficked tons of cocaine into the United States.
At his trial, prosecutors presented evidence that he’d worked with drug traffickers as long ago as 2004, taking millions of dollars in bribes as he rose from rural congressman to president of the National Congress and then to the country’s highest office.
Trial witnesses included traffickers who admitted responsibility for dozens of murders and said Hernández was an enthusiastic protector of some of the world’s most powerful cocaine dealers, including notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, who is serving a life prison term in the U.S.
The investigation which had led to the ex-Honduran president’s conviction was led at one point by Emil Bove, Trump’s former personal attorney who was a federal prosecutor at the time. Trump appointed Bove to a lifetime position as a federal judge and he was confirmed by the Senate to that role earlier this year.
Despite the significant evidence against Hernandez that was presented to the jury that convicted him, Trump claimed last week that the entire case had been a “Biden set-up,” telling reporters aboard Air Force One that he’d “looked at the facts” and agreed with Hernandez’s claim that the prosecution was politically motivated.
“It was a terrible thing. He was the president of the country and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country,” Mr Trump said, “And they said it was a Biden administration set-up. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them,” he said.
Trump unveils ‘historic reset’ of Biden fuel rules, touts $109 billion in savings
Auto industry leaders praised the move as aligning standards with ‘market realities’
President Donald Trump announced on Wednesday afternoon a reset of federal fuel standards that heightened under the Biden administration, which the White House said will save “$109 billion in total” for American families.
“We’re officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible, actually, CAFE standards that imposed expensive restrictions and all sorts of problems, gave all sorts of problems, to automakers,” Trump said.
“And we’re not only talking about outside of our country, because nobody could do it. Nobody wanted to do it. And it was ridiculous, very expensive. It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices, combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate. Biden’s burdensome regulations have caused the price of cars to soar more than 25%, and in one case, they went up 18% in one year,” he continued.
Fox News Digital exclusively reported on details ahead of the event, including that Ford’s and Stellantis’ CEOs, as well as General Motors’ plant manager, would gather in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon, where Trump will announce a “historic reset of the CAFE standards that were created by the Biden administration,” according to the White House.
“As America’s largest auto producer, we appreciate President Trump’s leadership in aligning fuel economy standards with market realities,” Ford CEO Jim Farley said ahead of the announcement. “We can make real progress on carbon emissions and energy efficiency while still giving customers choice and affordability. This is a win for customers and common sense.”
President Donald Trump is set to announce a “reset” to Biden-era fuel regulations that the White House said will lower car prices. (Samuel Corum/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Corporate Average Fuel Economy, or CAFE standards, first enacted in 1975, are government regulations for the average fuel efficiency of a vehicle fleet that aim to lower emissions.
Trump rolled back aggressive standards put forth by the Obama administration under his first term in office, with Biden subsequently resetting and tightening the CAFE standards under his administration.
The Biden administration, for example, boosted fuel efficiency requirements by 8% for 2024 and 2025 model years and 10% for 2026, which was far higher than Trump’s 1.5% that was finalized under his first term and applied to car model years 2021–2026. The Trump White House argued that the aggressive standards set under the Biden-era were not feasible to meet with available technologies for gas cars, and that the standards would have compelled consumers to shift to electric vehicles.
“Today, we’re taking one more step to kill the Green New scam as part of the greatest scam, probably,” Trump continued, adding that a few other scandals could also be considered the “greatest scam.”
“The greatest scam in American history, the Green New Scam. And it’s a quest to end the gasoline-powered car. This is what they wanted to do, even though we have more gasoline than any other country by far. And people want the gasoline car. They want everything. They want electric. They want to have lots of alternatives. But they do want the gasoline car. Right now, it’s leading away by a lot,” Trump said during the event.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks on his Build Back Better infrastructure agenda in New Jersey, Oct. 25, 2021. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters / Reuters Photos)
The White House told Fox Digital earlier on Wednesday that the Biden-era regulations would have raised the average cost of a new car by nearly $1,000, relative to the cost under these reset standards, and that Trump’s actions would save American families $109 billion.
Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa added in comment ahead of the announcement that the company looks forward to continuing working with the administration to “allow us to offer our customers the freedom to choose the vehicles they want at prices they can afford.”
“Stellantis appreciates the Trump Administration’s actions to re-align the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards with real world market conditions as part of its wider vision for a growing US automotive industry. We look forward to working further with NHTSA on environmentally responsible policies that also allow us to offer our customers the freedom to choose the vehicles they want at prices they can afford,” Filosa said.
“GM supports the goals of NHTSA’s proposed CAFE rule and its intention to better align fuel economy standards with market realities,” GM said in comment to Fox News Digital ahead of the event. “We have long advocated for one national standard that upholds customer choice and provides the auto industry long-term stability. As we review the proposal, we remain committed to offering the best and broadest portfolio of electric and gas-powered vehicles on the market.”
Trump has taken a series of actions since his return to the Oval Office that specifically target vehicles and environmental regulations that he has argued are intended to force electric vehicles on the general public, while driving up costs. In June, Trump signed a joint resolution that effectively ended California’s electric vehicle mandate.
New General Motors vehicles are parked at the GM Lansing Grand River Assembly plant. (Bill Pugliano/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The joint resolution ended California’s plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035, including one ending a waiver issued by the Biden-era EPA that mandated at least 80% of vehicles be electric vehicles in California by 2035, as well as ended the Biden-era EPA’s approval of a plan to increase the number of zero-emission heavy-duty trucks in California.
Under Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act — which was a massive piece of legislation Trump signed into law in July that advances his agenda on taxes, immigration, energy, defense and the national debt — civil penalties for violating CAFE standards were dropped to $0, which protected the car industry from significant fines.
Trump claims to void all documents signed by Biden, citing autopen use
Presidents of both major parties have used the device and experts called into question legality of Trump’s move
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