Biden Stumbles, Then Tells Heckler 'No More Drilling' at Final Hochul Rally (November 6, 2022)

President Joe Biden’s last big push for New York Gov. Kathy Hochul got off to a rocky start and ended with a promise that rattled the oil patch. Midway through the Sunday night rally, he stumbled on a floor wire: “Oops, stepping on a—there’s a—it’s black. Anyway.” After his closing line, he told a heckler, “No more drilling. There is no more drilling.”

The video above shows the stumble outside the Westlands building at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York, on Nov. 6, 2022, two days before the midterm elections. Quotes are from the official transcript published by the American Presidency Project, which notes that “the President stumbled on a floor wire” [1].

”Oops, Stepping on a—”

The night was chaotic from the start. The transcript records at least three disruptions in the audience. “Hey, hey—let him holler. Let him holler,” Biden said the first time, as supporters chanted “Joe! Joe! Joe!” [1].

The stumble came as he was touting his $2,000 cap on seniors’ drug costs. Later, as Biden was telling a story about world leaders’ reaction to Jan. 6, an audience member fainted, and he stopped to call for medical help: “Come on. You’ve been standing a long time” [1].

At one point Biden joked about his age, which was then 79: “I know I don’t look it, but I’ve been around a little while. Somebody said my birthday is coming up, and I said, ‘No, that must be somebody else’” [1].

”No More Drilling”

The moment that made headlines came after Biden said his final “God bless you all.” A heckler shouted from the crowd, and Biden answered: “No more drilling. There is no more drilling. I haven’t formed any new drilling” [1].

The audience member shot back: “You released 5 more years of offshore drilling.”

“That was before I was President,” Biden replied. “We’re trying to work on that, get that done. Thank you” [1].

Fox News reported that Biden had been “shouted down by a climate protester” and was repeating a campaign-trail pledge to end new drilling on federal land and offshore [2]. The very next day, Biden tweeted that oil companies’ profits “should’ve been used to expand supply and lower prices at the pump” [2].

”Before I Was President”? The Record

The heckler had a point. The five-year offshore plan was not a leftover from the Trump years. Biden’s own Interior Department released it on July 1, 2022, more than 17 months into his term [3].

What it proposed: No more than 10 potential lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, with options ranging from zero sales to 11 [3].
What it replaced: The 2018 draft from the Trump administration had proposed 47 lease sales across 25 of 26 offshore planning areas [3].

Biden’s comments left his own team cleaning up. Weeks later, CNBC’s Joe Kernen pressed Amos Hochstein, Biden’s special presidential coordinator for energy, on the president’s “no more drilling” line, saying such talk “causes the major oil producers to not want to invest long term.” Hochstein answered that the country would “eventually” phase out oil, but that the economy would keep using it “for several more years” [4].

The Closing Pitch Against Zeldin

Most of the speech was an attack on Hochul’s Republican opponent, Rep. Lee Zeldin. Biden said Zeldin voted against the bipartisan infrastructure law, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, and he called Zeldin one of the “election deniers” [1].

He also repeated the claims he made all through that final week. He said his predecessor was “the first President in America since Herbert Hoover to lose more jobs” than he had on taking office, a line HYGO News looked at from his Syracuse speech. And he said, “I have cut the deficit $1.4 trillion just this year, the largest in American history” [1]. The deficit did fall $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2022 [11], but mostly because COVID relief was ending, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget [12], and the national debt kept rising past $31 trillion [13]. See the numbers from his Philadelphia rally the day before.

By the Numbers

12.9 million barrels a day: average U.S. crude oil production in 2023, a record for any country, according to the Energy Information Administration [5].
11: the most offshore lease sales in Biden’s July 2022 proposed program, against 47 in the 2018 Trump draft [3].
625 million acres: the ocean area Biden moved to put off-limits to offshore drilling in January 2025, two weeks before leaving office [6].
56-42: the Senate vote confirming Zeldin to run the Environmental Protection Agency in 2025 [7].

What Happened Next

Hochul won a full term. Zeldin conceded the next day, congratulating “New York Governor Kathy Hochul on her election to a full four-year term” [8].

The drilling never stopped. In March 2023, Biden’s Interior Department approved ConocoPhillips’ Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope [9]. And U.S. oil production set an all-time record in 2023 [5]. Whatever Biden meant by “no more drilling,” the country pumped more crude than any nation ever had.

Biden’s last-minute ban was undone. On Jan. 6, 2025, Biden announced protections for 625 million acres of ocean along the East and West coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea. Trump promised, “I’m going to have it revoked on day one” [6]. He did: his Jan. 20, 2025, executive order on initial rescissions revoked Biden’s Jan. 6 memorandum withdrawing those offshore areas from leasing [10].

Zeldin got a bigger job. Trump picked the Long Island Republican to lead the EPA. The Senate confirmed him 56-42 on Jan. 29, 2025, with three Democrats, including Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, voting yes [7].