President Joe Biden continues to draw attention, but not for the reasons he might have hoped for. This week, Biden has stirred controversy for committing public gaffes in which he recounted conversations with dead European leaders.
Joe Biden's Latest Gaffes: President Talks About Meeting With Dead European Leaders
According to NBC News, Joe Biden mistakenly referred twice to the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl on Wednesday instead of former Chancellor Angela Merkel while recalling a 2021 conversation at campaign events.
The public gaffes happened in two fundraising events held in New York, where the president recounted conversations with Kohl at the Group of Seven (G7) meeting in the UK in 2021. However, Kohl passed away in 2017, while Merkel attended the 2021 summit in the UK.
In an event in Nevada on Sunday, Biden also mixed up French President Emmanuel Macron with former French president François Mitterrand, who died in 1996, as he recounted an encounter with the French leader at a G7 meeting during his first year in office, Fox News reported.
"I sat down, and I said, 'America's back.... And Mitterrand from Germany - I mean from France - looked at me and said...," Biden told the crowd.
The president then composed his thoughts to complete the sentence and said: "Well, how long are you back for?"
Other Public Gaffes Committed by Joe Biden
New York Post reported that Joe Biden called former President Donald Trump the "sitting president" at a recent South Carolina rally.
In a speech in North Carolina, the president noted that he "just had [his] picture taken" with Representative Deborah Ross, but moments later, he said: "Oh, she couldn't be here actually. That's not true, I got mixed up... She's up in Washington right now."
In his remarks, Biden also referred to the United States as a "major company" when he meant to say country.
The New York Post also reported that while addressing a question about hostage negotiations on Tuesday, Biden said: "There is some movement, and I don't wanna, I don't wanna... Let me choose my words: There's some movement, there's been a response from the, uh... There's been a response from the opposition, but, um..."
A reporter then intervened and mentioned the name "Hamas," which Biden quickly acknowledged: "Yes, I'm sorry, from Hamas."
Biden, 81, has been having memory lapses or likely "senior moments" since before his inauguration in 2021, and it looks like it's getting more frequent. Due to these series of public gaffes and missteps, many questioned his mental fitness.
An NBC News poll conducted last month shows 76% of voters, half are Democrats, say they have concerns about the president's mental and physical health, while 48% of voters have concerns about the mental and physical health of Trump, who is now 77 years old.
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