Joe Biden appeared to confuse the current French president Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, during a Monday speech.
The president, speaking in Las Vegas to hospitality workers, ahead of Tuesday's Nevada primary, told an anecdote about attending the G7 summit in England in June 2021.
'It was in south of England and I sat down and I said: 'America's back,'' Biden recalled.
'And Mitterrand from Germany, I mean from France, looked at me and said: 'You know, how long you back for?''
Biden, continuing his rambling, said the then-chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, asked him how he'd feel if he was hearing about the storming of Parliament in Britain. Biden said it was a new way of looking at the January 6 riot through fresh eyes.
Joe Biden appeared to confuse the current French president Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, during 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 French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon
'I never thought about it from that perspective. What would we say if that happened in another democracy around the world,' said Biden.
He added: 'It's not going to happen. This guy is going to lose.'
Biden's confusing of Mitterrand and Macron is embarrassing for an 81-year-old already battling to convince the American public that he retains his full mental faculties.
He knows Macron, 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.
Biden, as chair of the European Affairs Committee, met Mitterrand in January 1988 while discussing a Soviet nuclear weapons treaty.
Mitterrand was president until 1995, and died a year later, aged 79.
Biden's confusion is just the latest gaffe for the famously folksy president, who had a stutter as a child and has referred to himself as a 'gaffe machine.'
He has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq, instead of at Walter Reed, and in June 2023 muddled up the ongoing war in Ukraine for the Iraq War, which ended in 2011.
He declared that Vladimir Putin was 'clearly losing the war in Iraq.'
Biden's confusion is just the latest gaffe for the famously folksy president. He has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq, instead of at Walter Reed
Biden has previously said confused the war in Ukraine with the Iraq war and declared that Vladimir Putin was 'clearly losing the war in Iraq'.
That same month, he closed out 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 ended cancer as we know it.'
And in December 2023, he bragged about infrastructure spending, saying it was at: 'Over a billion, 300 million, trillion, 300 million dollars.'
Biden has also hit out at Donald Trump's gaffes - noting that Trump references 'starting World War Two', which has already been and gone, and confusing Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.
'He's a little confused these days,' Biden said.
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