Americans can’t count on the Secret Service to secure a rooftop perch just 400 feet from Donald Trump’s podium, but they can count on President Biden to deliver a huge verbal blunder every single time he’s in a major spotlight. 

The latest proof came on Sunday evening, as Biden delivered a special address to the American people from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. It was just the third time in his term that he used that setting. It imparts the highest gravitas to a presidential message — but only if the chief executive in question is capable of speaking even roughly verbatim the words that appear before him on a teleprompter. That is absolutely not the case with Joe Biden. 

Sunday’s Oval Office address: President Biden couldn’t go six minutes without another major malfunction 

Prompted by Saturday’s stunning assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania that nearly killed Trump while taking the life of a spectator and critically injuring two more, Biden’s six-minute speech centered on a call for Americans to “lower the temperature in our politics.” Here’s a sampling: 

“We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America. There is no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized…Politics must never be a battlefield or, God forbid, a killing field.”

Then, like clockwork, came the inevitable major-league Biden malfunction. Instead of insisting that Americans settle their differences at the ballot box, Biden said political differences should be settled at the “battle box.” He then paused in what seemed like recognition of his error, only to reiterate the idea and again seem to say “battle box.” 

“In America, we resolve our differences at the battle box.” pic.twitter.com/4YmPyXK25g

— MAZE (@mazemoore) July 15, 2024

The flub was remarkable because it was the latest in a specific pattern in which Biden’s brain serves up a word or phrase that’s the opposite of what he’s trying to convey. The chief example of that phenomenon was when, introducing Ukrainian President Zelensky, he introduced him as President Putin: 

🚨🇺🇸🇺🇦 Holy shit! Biden just introduced Zelensky as “PRESIDENT PUTIN.”

“And now I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine… ladies and gentlemen – President Putin.”
pic.twitter.com/0E2NPDbVAq

— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) July 11, 2024

A couple hours later — at highly-anticipated, high-stakes press conference — he told reporters, “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be (my) vice president did I think she’s not qualified to be president”:

“I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, if she’s not qualified to be president.” pic.twitter.com/UnLFQy05cj

— jordan (@JordanUhl) July 11, 2024

Although Biden’s remarks have faced close scrutiny since his train-wreck of a June 27 presidential debate put even low-info Americans on notice of his mental decline, virtually every media outlet on Sunday charitably quoted Biden as saying “ballot box.” After more than two weeks of boosting the establishment coup that seeks to replace Biden on November ballots, maybe they thought that was their own contribution to “turning down the temperature.” 

The “battle box” was far from Biden’s only verbal stumble. For example, elsewhere in his remarks, he made a reference to “the former Trump” — a Freudian wishful-thinking slip?   

We’d be remiss if we didn’t underscore the towering hypocrisy of Biden admonishing Americans against using heated rhetoric: Biden has been at the forefront of a leftist campaign to turn up the temperature of American politics, by casting Trump as a unique danger to the country, one whose re-election could mean the 2024 election is our last. 

Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation.

He’s a threat to our freedom. He’s a threat to our democracy. He’s literally a threat to everything America stands for.

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) June 28, 2024

The closest Biden came to acknowledging any personal responsibility for the overheated political rhetoric was to say “we all have a responsibility” to “cool it down.” That is to say, he came nowhere close. 

Biden’s speech also contained a fluffy line clearly written by people with little grasp of the history of America’s founding:

“You know, from the beginning, our founders understood the power of passion, so they created democracy. That gave reason and balance a chance to prevail over brute force.” 

To the contrary, because they understood “the power of passion,” the founders were extremely wary of democracy. In a pure democracy, passions can put political minorities in grave peril — which is why the Constitution and Bill of Rights contain various safeguards against a “tyranny of the majority.” The founders sought “reason and balance” by veering away from democracy and instead instituting a representative republic with a federal government whose powers were “few and defined.”

You likely saw the photo of what is reportedly Joe Biden’s speechwriting team

But did you catch what’s going on in the back? 😂

credit: @ComradeDoyIe pic.twitter.com/w4pwmATdYJ

— Arynne Wexler (@ArynneWexler) July 7, 2024

As for the soaring passions of the present day, as Brian McGlinchey has explained at Stark Realities, they’re in great part the result of the disintegration of the founders’ safeguards:   

The intensity of our division springs from a federal government operating far beyond the limits of the Constitution — fueling a fight for control over powers that were never supposed to exist at the national level. To put it another way, if the federal government were confined to its actual granted authorities, federal elections would be of little interest to the general public, because the outcome would be largely irrelevant to their everyday lives.

Needless to say — from weaponization of an FBI that isn’t even authorized to exist to the use of unconstitutional regulatory agencies to target political adversaries — Biden and other leftists zealously exploit those disintegrating safeguards to advance their decidedly un-American agenda. 

Meanwhile, though Biden’s latest major gaffe underscores the sorry state of his faculties, social media is having a ball with it…

Me and the boys headed to the Battle Box on November 5th: https://t.co/45qEedg9TG pic.twitter.com/BIGQamlsG4

— Prison Mitch (@MidnightMitch) July 15, 2024

Battle Box? Most of America calls it Waffle House, but whatever. https://t.co/IEaw3uhbki

— Vanessa (@Nessakins_) July 15, 2024

This is the Battle Box, the appropriate place to resolve our differences. pic.twitter.com/DFIrYj4TKD

— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) July 15, 2024

Breaking out the Ninjago Battle Box to save democracy. https://t.co/mZeVAXQFIV pic.twitter.com/nIenuwvBen

— Prison Mitch (@MidnightMitch) July 15, 2024