Joe Biden Misquotes Abraham Lincoln Despite Vowing Precision: "Get This Quote Exactly Right"

Speaking to the nation's governors, President Joe Biden mangled one of Abraham Lincoln's most popular quotes, immediately after saying, “I want to make sure I get this quote exactly right.”

Adding to his continuous list of gaffes, the 81-year-old president recited a passage from Abraham Lincoln's inaugural address, while reading off a notecard. “Standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me, I want to make sure I get this quote exactly right,” Biden started to speak while standing in front of a portrait of the iconic US President, per The New York Post.

Biden said, “He said, ‘We — the better angels', he said, ‘We must address the counsel — and adjust to 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."

Biden was attempting to quote a famous remark from Lincoln's first inaugural speech, which was delivered in March 1861. “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection,” Lincoln told the nation, amid great division at the time.

“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield 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,” Lincoln continued. Lincoln delivered the address in March 1861, more than a month before Confederate soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, formally beginning the Civil War, and not in the midst of it, as Biden claimed.

Biden's most recent gaffe coincides with growing concern among Democrats over his use of notecards to interact with supporters. The majority of American voters (86%) think that Biden is too old to hold public office for another term, according to a recent survey, ABC News reports.

However, according to a recent ABC News/Ipsos survey, 62% of participants think that 77-year-old former US President Donald Trump is too old to hold office again. Of those surveyed, 59% think that the two primary competitors for 2024 are too elderly, while 27% think that just the president of the United States is too old to be in the running.

Although Biden didn't discuss his gaffe, he did joke about his age in the same speech, commenting, “Folks — and I’ve been around. I know I don’t look it. I’ve been around a long while, though.” He continued, on a serious note, “And I mean this sincerely, we’ve gotten — politics has gotten too bitter — Democrats and Republicans. Politics has gotten too personally [sic], and it just is – it’s just not like it was.”