Last month, President Joe Biden, 81, appeared to read stage instructions aloud. He said the word “pause” instead of pausing.
On Thursday, Biden made the same mistake again… and he left audiences even more baffled this time.
During a stop in North Carolina, Biden was promoting the 2021 American Rescue Plan, and he appeared to read a pronunciation guide.
“We are detecting and removing so-called forever chemicals, referred to as PFAS,” Biden said. “P. dash F.A.S. dash.”
Commentators compared Biden to Ron Burgundy, the Anchorman protagonist known for observing the teleprompter’s letter over its spirit.
Take a look —
Joe “Ron Burgundy” Biden: "…referred to as PFAS. P-dash-F-A-S-dash…" pic.twitter.com/vADs3mKc5Y
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 2, 2024
PFAS stands for “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances.”
Experts tend to pronounce the acronym as “PEE-fahss.” Also, when discussing more than one of these chemicals, they tend to pluralize the acronym as PFASs or PFASes.
PFASs include substances like Teflon, and they’re sometimes described as “forever chemicals.”
“Folks, I’m here to talk about something very basic and fundamental to our communities, to our economy, to our basic human dignity: safe, clean drinking water,” Biden said in North Carolina.
“As a consequence of the first major law I signed that not many on the other team signed up to support — the American Rescue Plan back in March of 2021 — we provided North Carolina with historic investments in clean water money.”
North Carolina has become a thorn in the Democrats’ side. Despite having a Democrat governor, the state has voted Republican in every presidential election since 2012.
However, the Democrats have been circling the state this year, following Donald Trump’s 1.3-point margin of victory there in 2020.