Biden Stumbles Over Teleprompter: “Buy It in Toronto… In Toronto!” Then Admits Inflation Reduction Act Is “Misnamed”

On August 29, 2023, President Joe Biden delivered remarks at a White House event promoting his economic agenda and managed to produce two notable moments in rapid succession. First, Biden got tangled in his own teleprompter while discussing prescription drug prices, saying Americans could “buy the same drug in Toronto or Paris cheaper than you can buy it in Toronto” before catching himself and correcting to “Chicago.” Then, in a moment of unexpected candor, Biden admitted that his signature Inflation Reduction Act was “misnamed,” an admission that validated what critics had been saying since the bill was passed.

The clip captured both the cognitive stumbles and the occasional accidental honesty that had come to define Biden’s public appearances, providing critics with a two-for-one highlight reel from a single speech.

The Toronto Teleprompter Stumble

Biden was attempting to make a straightforward point about prescription drug pricing disparities between the United States and other countries when the teleprompter, or his ability to read it, failed him.

“A drug company that makes a drug here in America, if it’s sold in Chicago, you can buy the same drug in Toronto or Paris cheaper than you can buy it in Toronto,” Biden said, mistakenly repeating Toronto instead of completing the comparison with Chicago.

He then caught the error: “I mean, in Chicago.”

The underlying point Biden was trying to make was a legitimate policy argument that the same medications manufactured by the same companies were often sold at significantly lower prices in countries like Canada and France compared to the United States. However, the garbled delivery undermined the message, as the clip’s viral spread focused on the cognitive lapse rather than the policy substance.

This type of teleprompter stumble had become a hallmark of Biden’s public speaking. Throughout his presidency, Biden repeatedly confused cities, names, dates, and facts during prepared remarks. Unlike impromptu gaffes, which any speaker might make, these errors occurred while Biden was reading from a teleprompter, a tool specifically designed to prevent such mistakes. The frequency with which Biden stumbled even with the aid of prepared text raised questions about his ability to process and articulate written information in real time.

Biden Admits the Inflation Reduction Act Is “Misnamed”

The more consequential moment came seconds later when Biden made an admission that his political opponents had been arguing for over a year.

“Two weeks ago, we celebrated the first anniversary of the Inflation Reduction Act, which in a sense is misnamed,” Biden said. “We did lower inflation, but there are many other things in that legislation.”

This was a remarkable statement. The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in August 2022, had been sold to the American public primarily on the promise embedded in its name: that it would reduce inflation. The name was chosen precisely because inflation was the top economic concern for American families at the time, and the administration wanted to signal that it was addressing the problem directly.

Critics, including economists from across the political spectrum, had pointed out from the beginning that the bill’s primary provisions, which focused on climate spending, healthcare subsidies, and tax changes, would do little to meaningfully reduce inflation in the near term. The Congressional Budget Office had estimated that the bill’s impact on inflation would be negligible. Some economists argued that the additional government spending in the bill could actually contribute to inflationary pressure.

By admitting the name was “misnamed,” Biden was essentially conceding that the legislation had been marketed under false pretenses. The name was a political branding exercise designed to make a massive climate and healthcare spending bill more palatable to a public concerned about rising prices, and Biden’s admission confirmed what his critics had been saying all along.

The Political Significance of the Admission

Biden’s offhand acknowledgment that the Inflation Reduction Act was misnamed was significant for several reasons.

First, it undermined the administration’s own messaging. For over a year, the White House had aggressively promoted the Inflation Reduction Act as evidence that Biden was taking decisive action to combat inflation. Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and other officials had repeatedly cited the legislation as proof of the president’s commitment to lowering costs for American families. Biden’s own admission that the name was misleading pulled the rug out from under this entire messaging effort.

Second, it validated Republican criticism that the bill was a bait-and-switch. Republicans had argued from the outset that calling the bill the “Inflation Reduction Act” was a cynical marketing tactic designed to disguise what was primarily a climate spending bill. Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, the pivotal Democratic vote who negotiated many of the bill’s provisions, had himself expressed frustration that the administration’s implementation of the legislation had departed from the deal he believed he had struck.

Third, the admission came at a particularly inopportune time for the White House’s economic messaging. August 2023 was the height of the “Bidenomics” branding campaign, during which the administration was attempting to convince Americans that Biden’s economic policies were working. Having the president himself admit that his signature economic legislation was misnamed directly contradicted the narrative his team was trying to build.

What the Inflation Reduction Act Actually Did

The Inflation Reduction Act, as passed, was primarily a climate and energy spending bill with some healthcare provisions attached. Its major components included approximately $370 billion in climate and energy spending, including tax credits for electric vehicles, solar panels, and other green energy investments. It extended Affordable Care Act subsidies for three years and allowed Medicare to negotiate prices on a limited number of prescription drugs for the first time.

On the revenue side, the bill imposed a 15 percent minimum tax on large corporations, a one percent excise tax on stock buybacks, and increased IRS funding by approximately $80 billion for enhanced tax enforcement.

The bill’s relationship to inflation was tenuous at best. The name was chosen as a political strategy to win the support of moderate Democrats like Manchin, who had been resistant to the broader Build Back Better spending plan. By rebranding a slimmed-down version of that plan as inflation reduction, the administration found a way to package climate spending as economic policy.

Additional Context

Biden’s twin gaffes on August 29 came during the same busy day of White House events that also featured his creepy whisper about Bidenomics and Vice President Harris’s claim that Biden was “lowering costs for working families in every way.” The combination of moments from a single day illustrated the challenge facing Biden’s communications team: even controlled, scripted events produced a steady stream of unflattering clips.

The Toronto/Chicago confusion was minor in isolation, the kind of verbal slip that any speaker might make. But in the context of Biden’s age and the accumulating evidence of cognitive decline, each such moment contributed to a larger narrative that the president was struggling with the demands of the office. Paired with the admission about the Inflation Reduction Act, the clip provided a particularly efficient encapsulation of the dual concerns about Biden: that he was both cognitively diminished and presiding over economic policies built on misleading premises.

Key Takeaways

• Biden confused Toronto and Chicago while reading from a teleprompter during remarks about prescription drug prices, saying Americans could buy drugs “cheaper than you can buy it in Toronto” instead of Chicago.
• Biden admitted that his signature Inflation Reduction Act was “misnamed,” conceding in a single sentence what critics had argued for over a year: that the bill’s name was a marketing exercise rather than an accurate description of its contents.
• The admission directly undermined the White House’s ongoing “Bidenomics” messaging campaign, which relied heavily on citing the Inflation Reduction Act as evidence of Biden’s economic leadership.
• The bill was primarily a climate and energy spending package with healthcare provisions, and multiple economic analyses had concluded it would have negligible impact on actual inflation.
• The dual gaffes occurred during the same day as other widely shared Biden moments, contributing to a single-day highlight reel that reinforced concerns about both his cognitive fitness and his economic messaging.