President Biden’s history of confusing and embarrassing gaffes is back under the spotlight after his faltering performance at a Nato press conference.
As the 81-year-old leader faced mounting pressure to step down as Democratic candidate in the 2024 US election, his opponent Donald Trump, 78, seized on his rollcall of mistakes. “Great Job, Joe!”, Trump wrote on social media.
Mixing up Zelensky and Putin
The hour-long session with journalists to mark the end of the Nato summit in Washington on July 11, 2024 was billed as the most important moment of Biden’s career.
He had not even faced his first question when he made his first mistake, as he introduced Volodymyr Zelensky to the world’s media. “Now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.”
Biden immediately noticed his gaffe and quickly attempted to correct himself: “I’m so focused on beating President Putin, we’ve got to worry about it.”
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Describing Trump as his vice-president
Biden’s second mistake of the evening followed moments later when he was asked whether Kamala Harris, his vice-president, had enough experience for the White House.
He replied: “I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president if she wasn’t qualified”.
Trump quickly sought to capitalise on the error with a series of mocking posts on his Truth Social platform about “Crooked Joe’s ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference”.
Although Biden did not immediately correct himself, he later responded on his Twitter account: “By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”
Confusing world leaders with their predecessors
The president also has a history of mixing up fellow heads of states with their far earlier predecessors.
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He confused Emmanuel Macron, the current French president, with Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, during a rally address to supporters in Las Vegas, Nevada, while recounting a G7 meeting in Cornwall in June 2021.
“Mitterrand from Germany — I mean, from France — looked at me and said, ‘You know, what… why… how long you back for?” Biden told his puzzled listeners.
Speaking subsequently in New York three days later, he claimed to have discussed the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021 with the German chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, four years before it took place. He was thinking of Angela Merkel.
Appearing to forget the name of Hamas
Biden appeared to forget the name of Hamas and stumbled over his words when speaking to the press in the White House. Asked for an update about hostage negotiations involving the terrorist group, Biden said: “There’s been a response from the opposition…”
He appeared to pause until a reporter suggested the word he was searching for was “Hamas”. “Yes, I’m sorry, from Hamas,” Biden continued.
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Confusing the wars in Ukraine and Iraq
In an infamous gaffe from June 2023, Biden slipped up twice in 24 hours by confusing the US war in Iraq with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden said that President Putin had been weakened by a mutiny carried out by the Wagner Group.
“He is clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden said of Putin, evidently meaning to refer to Ukraine. “He’s losing the war at home, and he has become a bit of a pariah around the world.”
Speaking to donors about his efforts to galvanise US allies in support of Kyiv a day earlier, Biden said: “If anybody told you — and my staff wasn’t so sure, either — that we’d be able to bring all of Europe together in the onslaught on Iraq and get Nato to be completely united, I think they would have told you it’s not likely,” he said, again meaning to say Ukraine.
‘God save the Queen’
Later that same month, President Biden caused confusion when he finished a speech on gun control in Connecticut by saying “God save the Queen, man”.
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The president was speaking to a group of gun safety advocates at the National Safer Communities Summit in Connecticut at the time. The White House later sought to explain away the bizarre reference by saying that he was merely “commenting to someone in the crowd”.
‘Mr President?’
That same month, Biden addressed Rishi Sunak by his own moniker: “Mr President.”
As they smiled and posed for photos at the White House, Biden began: “Well, Mr President…” Quickly correcting himself, he joked: “I just demoted you, Mr Prime Minister.”
The two laughed off the slip-up.
All Blacks or Black and Tans?
In April last year, the president confused New Zealand’s All Blacks rugby team with the British paramilitary force known as the Black and Tans that terrorised Ireland.
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Biden was thanking Rob Kearney, a distant cousin who played in an Irish rugby team that beat New Zealand, for the tie he was wearing. “This was given to me by one of these guys, right here. He was a hell of a rugby player. He beat the hell out of the Black and Tans.”
An official transcript of the remarks crossed out “Black and Tans” and inserted “All Blacks” instead. The US president made the slip during a speech in the Windsor pub in Dundalk on the first day of his three-day visit to Ireland.
‘Where’s Jackie?’
In September 2022, Biden asked during a speech, “Where’s Jackie?” as he searched for Jackie Walorski, an Indiana congresswoman who had died in a car accident the month before.
‘That fella down under’
Biden called the prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison, during a press conference to unveil the Aukus trilateral security partnership in September 2021.
During the historic announcement, Biden turned to Boris Johnson, then the British prime minister, to thank him for his co-operation.
“Thank you, Boris,” he said. Then, looking towards a TV screen on which Morrison was appearing by video link, Biden appeared to hesitate.
“And I want to thank that fella down under. Thank you very much, pal,” Biden said. He added: “Appreciate it, Mr Prime Minister.”
‘Rashid … Rashid Sanook’
When congratulating Rishi Sunak on becoming prime minister in October 2022, Biden mispronounced his name.
“Just today, we’ve got news that Rashid … Rashid Sanook is now the prime minister,” he told an audience at a White House event marking the Hindu festival of Diwali.
Greatly exaggerating death of Irish PM’s mother
In 2010, at a St Patrick’s Day reception Biden asked for God’s blessing for the late mother of Brian Cowen, then the Irish prime minister — except that she was very much alive.
Biden got confused over which of Cowen’s parents had passed away. “God rest her soul,” Biden said as he introduced Cowen and Barack Obama, then the US president. “Although she’s, wait. Your mom’s still alive. It was your dad that passed. God bless her soul. I gotta get this straight,” Biden said.
‘Stand up, Chuck’
At a campaign stop in Missouri in 2008, Biden, then the vice-presidential nominee, exhorted a state senator, Chuck Graham, to stand up for a round of applause. Graham is a paraplegic after a car accident he had at age 16.
“Stand up, Chuck, let them see you,” Biden said. “Oh, God love ya, what am I talking about. I tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up though, pal. You can tell I’m new.”
