His explanation, delivered haltingly, amounted to a hazy assumption that, since Dominique Pelicot had told him his wife was a consenting partner in a sex game, he had not given the matter any more thought.

The 39-year-old also set the parameters for what could become a more clear and forceful ideological foundation to the populist conservative movement that Donald Trumpov brought to the White House, sometimes haltingly, in 2016.

She haltingly explained that she used to live on Poplar Boulevard and asked for help getting into a house.

Biden’s subsequent vow to provide Ukraine with “whatever it takes, as long as it takes” to defend itself was realized too haltingly.

Kennedy speaks in a quiet, strained voice, sometimes haltingly, the result of a neurological condition called spasmodic dysphonia.