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| - On Jan. 15, 2025, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden made his farewell address from the Oval Office in the White House, touting his accomplishments and also warning the nation of a rising "oligarchy." Viewers found fault with a portion of his speech, saying the octogenarian president had made another verbal gaffe (for which he has a long-standing reputation), supposedly reciting the words "end of quote" from the teleprompter when it wasn't supposed to be read aloud.
A number of posts on X (archived here and here) recalled other instances of this same supposed misstep. One said, "Uh oh, Biden loses to the teleprompter one last time, reads "end of quote" again."
Misinformers have more than once seized on Biden's tendency to say "end of quote" in speeches as a supposed example of cognitive decline, as Snopes has noted before. However, as can be confirmed in the official White House video and transcript of his farewell speech, Biden had simply quoted someone else and indicated that he had finished the quote. We have reached out to the White House for comment.
Per the White House's official transcript, he said (emphasis added):
You know, his farewell address, President Eisenhower spoke of the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He warned us then about, and I quote, "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power," end of quote.
In the official White House video, Biden can be clearly heard saying "end of quote" around the 10:13 mark:
Saying "end of quote" is common in speeches or verbal statements when the person speaking is citing another's words. See this example of Ari Melber, an MSNBC news anchor quoting President-elect Donald Trump during the 2020 election. Melber said: "Declaring himself the winner. This is serious business. [Trump] said 'We did win the election,' end quote. He said that falsely."
While Biden's frequent verbal blunders raised doubts about his mental fitness to run for office and ultimately resulted in his dropping out of the 2024 presidential race, this particular section of his speech was neither a gaffe nor reflected negatively on his cognitive health. In fact, this part of the speech simply established that he was relying on Eisenhower's words and was notifying viewers that he had moved on to his own words.
In 2022, we covered another instance of Biden reading "end of quote" aloud during a speech. Then, in July 2024, many online also criticized Biden for reading "end of quote" aloud when he was in fact reading an excerpt from a dissenting opinion written by Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. He was simply letting viewers know he had finished the quote.
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