“And 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.”
But President Joe Biden wasn’t referring to Vladimir Putin, he was talking about Ukrainian leader President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was standing next to him.
The gaffe instantly became a headline for the NATO summit that has otherwise gone smoothly.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended Biden, saying: “Slips of tongue happen, and if you always monitor everyone, you will find enough of them.”
But questions about the president’s fitness to serve four more years – or win November’s election – continue to swirl. Here are some of the president’s other gaffes over recent years.
Referring to Kamala Harris as ‘vice president Trump’
At the same conference, was asked about his VP Kamala Harris and he mistakenly called her “vice president Trump”.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked vice president Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there,” he said.
He also struggled to find the words “chiefs of staff,” mistakenly referring to the group of the country’s top uniformed military leaders as “commander in chief” – the title he holds as president.
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‘I am so focused on beating Putin’, the US president said after.
Mixing up European leaders
Back in February, President Biden mistakenly claimed to have met Francois Mitterand, who died in 1996, at the G7 summit in 2021.
The same week, he said that he had spoken to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, about the January 6 riots, which happened in 2021.
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Gaffes about Ireland
Last year, the president confused the name of the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team with the reviled British paramilitary force the Black and Tans during a visit to Ireland.
He said: “See this tie I have, this shamrock tie? It was given to me by one of these guys right here, who’s a hell of a rugby player who beat the hell out of the Black and Tans.”
President Biden went on to correct himself during the speech and the White House said it was “very clear” to Irish rugby fans the president was referring to the New Zealand rugby team.
And in 2015, when he was vice president, he made an awkward joke when the then-Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny visited his house in Washington on St Patrick’s Day.
“Anyone wearing orange, you’re not welcome in… only joking,” he said, wearing a green tie as they smiled for a picture.
Orange is the colour associated with the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland, while green is used as a symbol by mostly Catholic Irish nationalists.
Nancy Pelosi
There was also the time when he praised Democrat speaker of the house Nancy Pelosi whom he said “helped rescue the economy in the Great Depression”.
He intended to say the great recession of 2008, rather than the economic crisis in early part of the 20th century.
Declaration of Independence
Back in 2020, President Biden appeared to give up on a quote from the Declaration of Independence.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women were created by the go-, uh, you know the, you know the thing!,” he said during a speech.