Biden MLK Day Speech Gets Off to Awkward Start with Mic Trouble and Off-Key Singing
President Joe Biden’s address on Martin Luther King Jr. Day had a clumsy beginning as he fiddled around with the microphone before leading everyone in the always-sappy ritual of singing the Happy Birthday song.
The president was at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington on Monday, and Reverand Al Sharpton introduced Biden for his delivery of the keynote speech for the National Action Network’s annual MLK breakfast. When Biden took to the podium, he asked, “Is this on? Hello, hello, hello?” as he took the mic to make sure it was working.
From there, Biden welcomed everyone in attendance before speaking directly to Martin Luther King III and his family. After honoring King’s parents, Biden called attention to his wife with the understanding that today is her birthday.
“Look, my wife has a rule in our family,” Biden said. “When it’s somebody’s birthday, you sing Happy Birthday. You ready?”
Without skipping a beat, Biden immediately started singing, and the crowd apparently saved him when he seemed to forget the name of King’s wife. When the awkwardness finally came to a merciful end, Biden explained “it’s hell turning 30, but you got to put up with it.”
Biden’s keynote address comes a day after his visit to Ebenezer Baptist Church in Georgia, the church where Dr. King served as pastor throughout the Civil Rights Movement. Senior pastor and Senator Raphael Warnock (D-GA) invited Biden to give a speech at the church, and his attendance makes Biden the first-ever sitting president to speak there.
Watch above via CNN.
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