In his latest embarrassing moment, US President Joe Biden seemed to confuse his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron with Francois Mitterrand, the ex-leader of the European nation who died nearly three-decade ago.
Addressing a crowd in Las Vegas ahead of Nevada’s primary on Tuesday, the 81-year-old president erroneously claimed to have spoken with Mitterrand, who passed away in 1996, during a gathering of world leaders at G7 meeting in 2021 in Cornwall, England.
“It was in the south of England. And I sat down and I said, ‘America is back,’ and Mitterrand from Germany, I mean from France, looked at me and said – said, ‘you know what — why — how long you back for?’” Biden said, while making a reference to a discussion among NATO leaders at the G7 meeting regarding the violence that took place at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
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“And I looked at him, and the — and the chancellor of Germany said, ‘What would you say Mr. President, if you picked up the paper tomorrow in the London Times and the London Times said, ‘A thousand people break through the House of Commons, break down the doors, two Bobbies are killed in order to stop the election of a prime minister. What would you say?’
“I never thought about it from that perspective,” Biden said. “What would we say if that happened in another democracy around the world?”
In the official transcript of the speech, White House admitted Biden’s mistake and noted Biden uttered Mitterrand, but was supposed to mention French President Macron, who has been holding the post since 2017. Mitterrand, on the other hand, held the president office from 1981 to 1995.
Joe Biden mocked for ‘Mitterrand-Macron’ mix-up
Biden has been under fire for his age and mental fitness as the 2024 presidential campaign gets underway in earnest. His verbal fumbles and physical mishaps, like tumbling on Air Force One’s stairs, have been used by his detractors as proof of his incompetence.
As soon as Biden’s latest blunder video surfaced on social media, Conservative podcaster Graham Allen reacted on X (formerly Twitter), saying — “This is not a healthy sign.”
“Joe Biden has revealed his superpower. He can talk to the ghosts of deceased European leaders,” another X user wrote.
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A third user commented: “He also met Santa Claus during Christmas!”
“No rational person can look at this clip and reasonably claim that Biden is good for another 4 years. In addition to flubbing the name of a world leader, just listen to his cadence. He’s stumbling, searching for words and just clearly not mentally all there,” one more added.
In yet another awkward moment last week, Biden called his opponent, Donald Trump, a “sitting president”.
However, the ex-US President Trump (77) has also faced backlash for such blunders, including the recent appearance of mistaking former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for GOP 2024 presidential nominee Nikki Haley.
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