At a gun control event on Friday, President Joe Biden ended a speech with a bizarre reference to Queen Elizabeth II, nine months after he attended her funeral.
Biden headlined at a summit in West Hartford, Connecticut where he joked about being 110 and told the crowd ‘God save the Queen’ – sparking confusion among the crowd.
The President was introduced at the National Safety Communities Summit by Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy, who’s long been involved in the issue.
As he again pushed to ban AR-15s and implement several other gun control measures, Biden expressed disgust that there were victims of gun violence “every damn day in America!”
Pushing for universal background checks, he added: “Folks, it’s time once again that we ban AR-15 rifles … high capacity magazines.
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“A lot of you are tired. You’re tired. No, I get it. Try being 110 and doing it again,’ he said to laughs. “All kidding aside, a lot of people are frustrated.”
He spoke about how in his budget he had requested more money to go after gun traffickers.
Biden said: “By the way, you know what I get when I, when talking about fentanyl at the border and all that? I speak to the president of Mexico. Will you stop sending guns to us? We are sending dangerous weapons, particularly assault weapons to Mexico – to Mexico!
“They’re asking us, please stop it. Cut it off at the border. What in God’s name are we becoming if we don’t do this,” the president added.
He then pledged to “never, never, never, never, never” yield on this issue.
Biden talked about how domestic violence was the ‘ultimate abuse, abuse of power,’ as he gave a meandering mention of the Violence Against Women Act.
“My dad used to say the single worst abuse of all was the abuse of power,” he added.
Biden told the crowd at the end of the speech, that he couldn’t stick around due to an impending storm, before heading to Greenwich, Connecticut for a political fundraiser.
Before his exit, he looked over to his aides and said: “Is that right, is that still the deal?”
The audience – comprised of a number of young activists – shouted back: “Nooooo!”
He then continued along a similar line he deployed at a 2020 campaign event in New Hampshire, a bizarre moment that went viral.
“That’s the truth, now don’t make a lie,” he said. “As that scene in the John Wayne movie, don’t make me a dog-faced lying pony soldier.”
Before heading offstage to take pictures with participants, he then told the group: “God save the Queen.”
A note sent out to the press by a pool reporter chronicling the trip said that he and the other reporters had “no idea” why the president mentioned the queen, who has been dead since September.
