Joe Biden appeared to confuse current French President Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, in a Monday speech.
The president told an anecdote about attending the G7 summit in England in June 2021 in a speech in Las Vegas to hospitality workers ahead of Tuesday's Nevada primary election.
“It was in the south of England and I sat down and said, 'America is back,'” Biden recalled.
“And Mitterrand from Germany, I mean from France, looked at me and said, 'You know, how much longer are you going to be here?'
Continuing his ramblings, Biden said then-German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked him how he would feel if he heard about the storming of the British Parliament. Biden said it was a new way to look at the Jan. 6 riots with fresh eyes.
Joe Biden appeared to confuse current French President Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, in a speech on Monday
While telling an anecdote from the G7 summit in June 2021, Biden confused French President Francois Mitterrand (pictured), who died in 1996, with the current French president
Biden knows the current President of France, Emmanuel Macron (pictured), well. He is the youngest president in the history of France and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon
“I never thought about it from that perspective. “What would we say if this happened in another democracy around the world,” Biden said.
He added, “That's not going to happen. This guy is going to lose.”
Biden's confusion between Mitterrand and Macron is embarrassing for an 81-year-old who is already struggling to convince the American public that he retains his full mental abilities.
He knows Macron, who was elected in 2017 at the age of 39, well: Macron is the youngest president in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon.
Biden also met Mitterrand as a young senator.
Mitterrand took office in 1981, when the current French president was three years old.
As chairman of the European Affairs Committee, Biden met with Mitterrand in January 1988 while discussing a Soviet nuclear weapons treaty.
Mitterrand was president until 1995 and died a year later at the age of 79.
Biden's confusion is just the latest faux pas for the famously folksy president, who stuttered as a child and described himself as a “panic machine.”
He has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq and not at Walter Reed, mistaking the ongoing war in Ukraine in June 2023 for the Iraq War that ended in 2011.
He declared that Vladimir Putin had “clearly lost the war in Iraq.”
Biden's confusion is just the latest faux pas for the famously folksy president. He has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq and not at Walter Reed
Biden had previously said he confused the war in Ukraine with the Iraq War and said Vladimir Putin “clearly lost the war in Iraq.”
That same month, he ended a speech on gun control with the bizarre proclamation: “God save the queen, man.”
Queen Elizabeth II had died in September 2022, so some thought he meant Queen Camilla, but the relevance was unclear.
The following month, Biden claimed to have reached a medical milestone, declaring, “We have ended cancer as we know it.”
And in December 2023, he bragged about infrastructure spending: “Over a billion, $300 million, trillion, $300 million.”
Biden has also spoken out about Donald Trump's gaffe – pointing out that Trump is referring to the “outbreak of World War II” that is already over, confusing Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.
“He’s a little confused these days,” Biden said.