Joe Biden knows he makes a lot of gaffes.
“I am a gaffe machine, but, my God, what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” the Democratic presidential candidate said back in December 2018.
But Biden’s not just a gaffester, he’s now a renowned neologist. Over the waning days of the 2020 campaign, Biden has literally begun to create new words.
During a speech in Michigan on Saturday, Biden talked about the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed into law by President Obama.
‘We’re also going to act to protect health care,” he said. “Trump and the Republicans just jammed through a Supreme Court nominee for one overwhelming reason, as Barack said, the president said, they have been trying with over 50 shots to take out Obamacare, to destroy the Affordable Care Act.”
Then he created a brand new word. “Donald Trump thinks health care is a privilege, Barack and I think it’s a right to have badakathcare,” he appeared to say.
Here’s another one for you…Wait for it… 😂 pic.twitter.com/ZFuWhbOvOZ
— Courtney Holland 🇺🇸 (@hollandcourtney) October 31, 2020
A bit later Biden dropped another new word: “trunalimunumaprzure.” Urban Dictionary defines the word thusly: “It literally means trunalimunumaprzure.”
Guys I can’t stop laughing 😂 Wait for the end….. pic.twitter.com/T6ICjlU0Sj
— Courtney Holland 🇺🇸 (@hollandcourtney) October 30, 2020
Biden stumbled again on Sunday during a campaign event in Philadelphia. “I know Philadelphia well, I married a Philly girl, by the way, and by the way, I got my Eagles jacket on,” Biden said.
But he wasn’t wearing an Eagles jacket, he was wearing a jacket featuring the logo of the University of Delaware — the Blue Hens.
“The ‘Eagles’ jacket Biden claims he’s wearing to try and show how much he’s in touch with Pennsylvania? It’s a Delaware Blue Hens jacket,” tweeted Zach Parkinson, the deputy director of communications for Trump’s re-election campaign.
This "Eagles" jacket Biden claims he's wearing to try and show how much he's in touch with Pennsylvania?
It's a Delaware Blue Hens jacket pic.twitter.com/4AUx2lj0Nu
— Zach Parkinson (@AZachParkinson) November 1, 2020
While Biden’s great at creating new words, spelling, apparently, isn’t his strong suit.
During an interview with a radio station in Miami, the host asked him, “What is the song I would have to play to get you hyped up?”
“Aretha Franklin’s ‘Respect,'” Biden said. He mumbled unintelligibly for a bit, then said, “R-E-S-P-C-T.”
Biden also occasionally forgets a word — and sometimes, it’s a very important word.
Last month, Biden said, “We have put together, I think, the most extensive and inclusive voter fraud organization in the history of American politics.” Presumably he meant to say “anti-voter fraud” or something along those lines as he followed that line by saying, “What the president is trying to do is discourage people from voting by implying that their vote won’t be counted, it can’t be counted, we’re going to challenge it and all these things.”
It’s not just words Biden struggles with — numbers aren’t his strong suit, either. In a speech in Iowa over the weekend, Biden said: “More than 200, and now I think it’s up to 30,000, people have died, Americans dead, because COVID-19.” More than 230,000 Americans have died from the virus, according to Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering.
Back in September, Biden said: “If Donald Trump has his way, the complications from COVID-19, which are well beyond what they should be — it’s estimated that 200 million people have died — probably by the time I finish this talk.”