Joe Biden doesn’t know how to pronounce the name of the UK’s new Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak. He makes a complete mess of it in this video. He’s making a speech and what annoys me is that Biden is being disrespectful of the UK and the new Prime Minister, and his audience are also being disrespectful because they take the whole thing is a joke. He has been watching too many Star Wars films as he pronounces it ‘Rasheed Sunook’ as if describing a Star Wars alien. The arrogance annoys me too. A toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance. Unpleasant and irritating to me. A bit of research beforehand would have clarified the name. He did not bother to do it.
This is how you pronounce his name:
They are unaware of the fact that he has totally mispronounced Rishi Sunak’s name. It isn’t just the current President of the United States who didn’t prepare well enough before delivering a speech to make sure that he can pronounce the name properly. I’ve heard other American officials mispronounced it too; stumbling over it. Horrible.
And I presume the “go figure” reference in the speech is to the fact that the Conservative party is meant to be right-wing, and they’ve appointed a British Asian to be Prime Minister; implying endemic racism. The Americans don’t seem to understand how that happened which is why Biden is saying “go figure”. It has bemused him, and his audience is whooping and hollering at his joke.
I don’t think it is respectful to make a joke about the appointment of a British Asian as Prime Minister of the UK. It’s a great thing. It shows how ethnically diverse the UK is. It shows how tolerant and affable UK citizens can be.
It shows to the world how democracy works. There has been a great mess recently with the appointment of Liz Truss as Prime Minister because she totally screwed up.
But the good thing is that the democratic machinery of the UK got rid of her quickly. She is the shortest serving Prime Minister in history. Democracy simply spat her out. This should be praised.
The world has been laughing at the political chaos in the UK, but this is a result of democracy too. You get great stability with autocracy and dictators because nothing changes. They ensure that they can stay in power for their entire lives e.g., Putin in Russia and President Xi Jinping in China.
But what’s better? The messy and less than perfect process of democracy or totalitarianism, restricting and suppressing freedoms? Winston Churchill once said that: “democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others that have been tried”. Correct.
I think President Biden has just been himself again which is a bumbling old doddery elder statesman who is losing his marbles. If you want to make a joke about politicians and be disrespectful, I think it is much easier to do it when talking about President Biden. “Go figure” why the hell is the President. There must be thousands of better candidates in the US for the presidency.
P.S. I know that it is not about cats but sometimes things irritate me enough to go off-piste. I have to get this off my chest. Biden can be so damn stupid sometimes.
My interpretation after watching the clip was that Biden’s “go figure” remark represented a sort of respect for the Conservative Party of the UK because it is not plagued by so many of the race issues that currently afflict its counterpart in the U.S. There is a sort of longing to see our own Republican Party evolve to the state UK’s Conservative party is at. Also, I took the audience’s applause to imply, “Good job, UK!”
You have to understand some of the zeitgeist regarding race in America since the 2010’s. There are numerous examples, but I’ll point out a few. Yes, America had just elected its first black president, but there was severe backlash. The First Lady Michelle Obama was pelted with some of the most vile, racist attacks, and it wasn’t from the left. In 2012, a black teenager named Trayvon Martin was walking home from the store with a bag of Skittles when a self-appointed neighborhood watch volunteer thought he was suspicious-looking and ultimately shot and killed him. A too-large number of conservatives strongly defended Trayvon’s killer and argued the teen had it coming (he didn’t). Then came the Charlottesville, Virginia United the Right rally in August of 2017. The rally included white supremacists, neo-Nazis, and the KKK chanting some of the most despicable, racist trash. A white supremacist purposely drove into a crowd of counter-protesters and killed a woman. The response from the then-President of the United States was, “you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” It was shocking to hear a President — from the party of Lincoln, no less — respond in such a way, and it SHOULD have been grounds for our Conservative party to part ways with Trump. Unfortunately, that is not the way our parties operate in the U.S.. Parties feel they have to defend their candidates to the death. As a consequence, white supremacists and neo-Nazis felt, let’s just say, more welcomed in the Republican Party. Incidentally, the Charlottesville rally so upset Biden that he felt obliged to come out of retirement to defeat Trump.
Anyhow, that’s a bit of background on why someone in the U.S. might look at the Rishi Sunak’s appointment and think, “Way to go, UK! See – not ALL conservative parties across the have race issues — go figure! If only OUR Republican Party could be more like UK’s Conservative party!”
Oh, and Biden is notorious for butchering names and words – I wouldn’t take it personally.
My interpretation of the ‘go figure’ is that he could not understand how a right-wing party had appointed a British Asian as PM. That is what came across to me and it is Biden’s brother who said it. Anyway, thanks Rena. Sunak is a smart, hardworking and intelligent British citizen who has achieved great success. I admire the guy. And he will stabilise the financial markets in the UK and clean up the mess left by Boris and particularly Truss.
Biden is a well-known gaffe machine, and he oftentimes puts his foot in his mouth. Ah, well, at least his heart is usually in the right place. I do hope things work out well with Sunak. Many of us in the U.S. wish desperately we could so easily get rid of poor political leaders and replace them with better ones the way the UK is able to. As it is, we may very well be stuck with the same retreads in 2024 with another Trump versus Biden presidential election. Sighhh….
I agree. I actually like Biden, but he screwed up. It makes him look stupid. There must be someone better in the US to lead the country. There are probably a million better candidates.