New mistake by the US President
Biden confuses Macron with his deceased predecessor
February 6, 2024, 4:27 p.m
Listen to article
This audio version was artificially generated. More info | Send feedback
The oldest sitting president of the USA repeatedly attracts attention with public lapses. Now Biden is not only confusing his French counterpart with his long-dead predecessor – but in the same breath is giving him a new nationality.
US President Joe Biden has once again caused a stir with a public slip of the tongue. A video excerpt from an election campaign event spread rapidly in online networks on Monday (local time) in which Biden first confused French President Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor François Mitterrand, who died almost 30 years ago – and then referred to him as Germany’s head of state.
At the event in Las Vegas, Biden, 81, who is likely to run for the Democrats again in November’s presidential election, spoke about Macron’s reaction to a speech at a G7 summit in 2020, according to White House transcripts Said Biden: “And Mitterrand – Macron, from Germany – I mean, from France, looked at me and said, ‘You know what – why – how long have you been back?'”
Mitterrand served as French President from 1981 to 1995. He died in 1996. A video of Biden’s slip of the tongue has been viewed thousands of times and shared hundreds of times on X alone.
Trump also messes up
Biden, the oldest sitting president of the United States, has had similar public outbursts on several occasions. At a conference in September 2022, he apparently thought that MP Jackie Walorski, who had died a month earlier, was among the listeners. Biden said: “Jackie, are you here? Where is Jackie?” And added: “I think she should be here.”
Last April, in a speech in Ireland, Biden confused the All Blacks, the New Zealand national rugby team, with the British military unit Blacks and Tans, which is still notorious in the country for its role in the Irish War of Independence.
In January, his most likely challenger by far in the presidential election, 77-year-old Republican former President Donald Trump, also noticed another misfire. He confused his former UN ambassador and current intra-party opponent Nikki Haley with the former Democratic leader of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi. Haley responded in a speech in which she questioned Trump’s mental fitness.