Conservatives on social media shared a clip of President Joe Biden’s recent remarks from Monday’s Easter egg roll event, mocking a seeming slip-up in his pronunciation.
Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden appeared at the annual Easter-themed event Monday, which drew a considerable crowd following a brief delay for rain, an estimated 40,000 attendees, up from around 30,000 in 2023. The event, which features the playing of the traditional “egg roll” game, has been popular in Washington, D.C., since 1814 during the tenure of President James Madison, and is credited to his wife, First Lady Dolley Madison. President Rutherford B. Hayes is credited with moving the yearly event to the White House grounds in 1878.
“Easter reminds us of the power of hope and renewal, and sacrifice and resurrection,” Biden said during an address at the event. “But mainly love and grace towards one another…That’s what I see in our country. We’re a great nation because we’re a good people. Our values are solid.”
It was a remark from elsewhere in the address, however, that drew mockery from conservatives on X, the platform previously known as Twitter. Near the end of his remarks just before he went to join the festivities, Biden gestured for two individuals dressed as the Easter bunny to greet the crowd, though in the clip, spread by accounts like RNC Research, he appears to slip up and call them “oyster bunnies”
This gaffe continued to circulate amongst conservatives on X, drawing mockery as an example of Biden’s advanced age and trouble speaking, an issue frequently leveled against the 81-year-old president by his critics.
“What did he mean by this?” right-wing commentator Ian Miles Cheong wrote in a post.
“Happy Oyster,” another conservative user, going by “ALX,” wrote.
“Joe Biden slurs his words and calls the Easter bunnies the ‘oyster bunnies,'” Steve Cortes, a conservative political operative previously employed by Donald Trump’s 2016 and 2020 campaigns, wrote. “This is the Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful nation on Earth.”
“Biden calls him the Osyter Bunny,” another user, going by “True Stormy Joe,” wrote alongside an image of the president standing next to an Easter bunny with an oyster pasted over its face.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email on Monday afternoon for comment.
As the oldest individual to ever hold the presidency, Biden’s age has long been under intense scrutiny from critics across the political spectrum, with his verbal gaffes in speeches receiving particular attention. He has, however, often received acclaim for his energy and clarity in high-import speeches, including his last two State of the Union addresses.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.