Joe Biden paused to say he’s making an effort to quote Abraham Lincoln, the Republican president often ranked as the best president in U.S. history, correctly - before quoting Lincoln incorrectly.
Biden said while standing in front of a portrait of Lincoln: "standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me… I want to make sure I get this quote exactly.”
Biden said, incoherently: He [Lincoln] said, “We, the better angels” - he said, “We must address the counsel and adjust the better angels of our nature.” And we do the, and we do well to remember what else he said. 'He said, “We’re not enemies, but friends.” This is in the middle of, this is in the, in the part of the Civil War. He said, “We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends. We must not be enemies.’”
Watch below (video credit to the NY Post):
Biden was attempting to quote from Lincoln’s inaugural address from March 1861, where he said: I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
Biden was also incorrect about Lincoln saying this during the Civil War, which started a month later on April 12.
But on the bright side, at least he didn’t claim to have recently spoken to Lincoln.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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