Jill Biden's tough crowd moment goes viral: "Clap for that!"

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Ewan Palmer

By Ewan Palmer

News Reporter

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A clip of first lady Jill Biden urging an audience to clap at comments she made during a speech has gone viral.

Biden appeared disappointed as remarks she gave at the Reagan Institute Summit on Education [RISE] event in Washington, D.C., on Thursday fell flat. This led to the wife of President Joe Biden calling on the audience to clap.

"I've visited red states and blue states, and I've found that the common values that unite us are deeper than our divisions," Biden said. After pausing for a brief moment, the first lady told the crowd, "And, um, I thought you might clap for that," prompting laughter and eventual applause.

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Jill Biden speaks at White House lectern

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The moment was jumped on by a number of Republican groups, who shared the "thought you might clap" moment on Twitter as a way to mock Biden. The official GOP Twitter account tweeted a clip of the remarks with the caption "TOUGH SCENE."

The GOP added that the moment was reminiscent of the infamous "please clap" comment from 2016 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush. However, other Twitter users backed the first lady, tweeting that the official GOP account should be focusing elsewhere: "you must do better than to make fun of the first lady of the USA. This divides and there are more pressing issues than this in our country right now."

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While on the campaign trial during the 2016 GOP primaries, Bush—a former Florida governor and the brother and son of former U.S. Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush respectively—called on a New Hampshire crowd to applaud his speech, which appeared to attack Donald Trump.

"I think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interest of this country, to get back into the business of a more peaceful world," Jeb Bush said. He then told the crowd "please clap" following a moment of silence from the audience.

Conservative news site TownHall also shared the Biden clip while tweeting that there were "*crickets*" from the crowd before she asked them to clap. The clips have been viewed tens of thousands of times across the social network.

This is not the first time that Biden has playfully asked a crowd to applaud her remarks. In 2019, she was speaking in Iowa to campaign for her husband's 2020 presidential election bid. At the small event in Parkersburg, Biden praised her husband as someone who is "standing up to the NRA and keeping our children and our schools safe."

After starting to continue her speech, Biden stops herself and tells the crowd: "That's my applause line, come on!" The reaction also drew laughter and applause from onlookers.

The two-day RISE event in which Biden appeared on Thursday aimed to "examine policy and practice from early childhood through postsecondary education and beyond," according to the Reagan Foundation's website. "The imperative for education reform is even more salient as the United States emerges from the global pandemic.

"We must answer the call to modernize our education system and prepare for the challenges of the 22nd century," the foundation's description page adds.

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