Resurfaced footage from 36 years ago shows late-night host Johnny Carson calling out then-Senator Joe Biden over one of his most controversial moments that haunts him to this day.  Carson shined the spotlight on past incidents early in Joe Biden’s political career where he allegedly stole pieces of other politicians’ speeches to use in his own.

“One of the Democratic candidates is Senator Joseph Biden. Have you seen the problem he’s been having?” Carson said.  “He went around and made a speech. And apparently, he quoted, I think it was a British politician, took his speech and kind of paraphrased it as his own. And then the press got on him. And then he was charged also with taking part of Bobby Kennedy’s speeches.”

The British politician in question was British Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock, where Biden used parts of his speech without attributing proper credit.  Additionally, there were allegations that Biden had stolen pieces of speeches from Bobby Kennedy.

The late-night host then delivered a hilarious punch line playing on a famous quote from Franklin D. Roosevelt. “And Biden says, not to worry, he reassured his staff. He said, ‘we have nothing to fear, but fear itself,’” he said.

Users on social media commented on the decades-old footage of Johnny Carson calling out Biden, where people slammed the president while regaling on the good ol’ days of late-night comedy before it devolved into what it has become today.

“If you didn’t know about that you should look it up. The news did a big report on it, back when there was real journalism. He ended up dropping out of the race because of it. I found it before the election when I was researching the candidates (what a novel approach). Obviously I ended up not voting for Biden,” one person commented urging people to research the controversy if they weren’t familiar with it.

While Biden was criticized in the past for stealing parts of his speeches, he now faces skepticism about whether he is physically and cognitively capable of carrying out the public-facing speaking engagements required of the President of the United States.

Joe Biden’s mental and physical fitness is undoubtedly one of the biggest questions on the minds of many Americans ahead of the 2024 presidential election.  Moreover, these concerns were recently validated by the findings of Special Counsel Robert Hur, which determined that charges should not be brought against Biden partly because of his elderly age and poor memory.

“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur’s report read. “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone from whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Watch the footage of Johnny Carson slamming Biden below.

https://x.com/bennyjohnson/status/1766195370999095406?s=46

Note: The featured image is By Credit: George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum – https://bush41library.tamu.edu/audiovisual/photos/72, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=92187066