President Joe Biden’s brand is, at best, populist and, at worst, creepy and noteworthy, as his decades in politics have been marked by a number of noteworthy gaffes.
From calling out a congresswoman who died during a speech, to suggesting he had cancer, DailyMail.com charted some of Biden’s most awkward moments from his past presidential contests and his time in the White House as he launched his re-election bid in 2024.
In the past, even some of his staunch allies have expressed caution about whether his missteps might affect his political future.
Former President Barack Obama reportedly told a Democrat during the 2020 Biden election, “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to manipulate things,” According to Politico.
Republicans are demanding President Joe Biden apologize after he asked a crowd at a hunger conference to tag Republican Rep. Jackie Waleworski — nearly two months after she was killed in a car crash in Indiana.
Neera Tanden, who now works for the Biden White House, sang a similar tune when Biden contemplated his 2016 primary bid against Hillary Clinton.
“The good thing about the Biden race is that it will make Hillary look much better,” Tanden told John Podesta, another Clinton adviser-turned-Biden, in a hacked email distributed by WikiLeaks.
Life changing bonus
Biden was elected to the United States Senate at the age of 29 and ran for his first presidential bid at the age of 44 in 1987.
If elected, he would become the second youngest person to be elected after President John F. Kennedy.
But just three months later, his campaign has been derailed thanks to a plagiarism scandal, with Biden omitting his tribute to UK Labor leader Neil Kinnock during two speeches. He previously remembered using the name Kinnock.
The misstep cost him his first chance at the White House in 1988.
He would not run again until two decades later.
Calling Obama “disjointed” and another ethnocentric
Biden ran for the White House for the second time in 2008.
This race began with an amazing compliment to the man who would finally put him on the ticket.
I mean, you’ve got your first mainstream African-American who is articulate, bright, clean, and a nice-looking guy. I mean, this is a storybook, man,” Biden said as he pitched to launch his second presidential campaign on January 31, 2007.
The remark was interpreted as racist. Biden later apologized and said he had been taken out of context.
But Biden had already gotten himself into hot water leading up to his July 2006 announcement by saying, “You can’t go to 7-Eleven or Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.”
Then when Biden was running for the White House in the 2020 cycle, he got a scare from Sen. Cory Booker, a black hopeful in 2020, for talking about how “civilized” the Senate is, despite some Democrats. party being racist.
Immediately, Biden refused to apologize.
“I apologize for what?” said the former vice president. Corey should apologize. He knows best. There is no elemental bone in my body. I have been involved in civil rights my entire career.
“Whoa” and “Where’s Jackie?”
After the collapse of his bid for the White House in 2008, Biden was given another chance for political promotion.
In August 2008, Democratic nominee Obama announced his decision to put Biden, then 65, on the ticket to be his vice president.
several weeks in, Brief profile of The New York Times Biden noted on the campaign trail that while the then-senator was “an experienced, serious, intelligent man” he “says something curious.”
The author later described Biden as a “verbal wrecking crew”.
Most disturbing: Asking paraplegic Senator Chuck Graham to stand up.
“Chuck, whoa, let the people see you,” said the vice-presidential candidate at the time. He soon realizes that the late Graham uses a wheelchair. “Oh, God loves you. What am I talking about?” Biden mused.
Biden made an equally embarrassing mistake in September when he exclaimed “Where’s Jackie?” During the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.
He was referring to Rep. Jackie Walorsky, who died in a car crash in August.
The White House press secretary, Karen Jean-Pierre, tried to explain the blunder by saying that Biden was “acknowledging her amazing work” and that she was “top of mind,” rather than saying the president had forgotten about her death or there were staff members. mistake.
Colorful language
Once the Obamas and Bidens were in the White House, health care reform was a top priority — and the Democrats got away with that by passing the Affordable Care Act.
The most memorable moment from that signature: the four-letter word that came out of the vice president’s mouth.
“This is a big deal,” Biden told Obama.
Cut to his chair and the president has used some colorful language.
Biden commented in January 2022, after hearing a question asked by Peter Doocy of Fox News:
Joe Biden called a college student in town hall on Sunday a “lying and pony soldier.” The comments erupted after Biden asked the student if she had ever been to a rally
Strange interactions with the audience
Besides his occasional conflict with the press, the president also had some abnormal interactions with members of the public.
During his 2020 campaign, Biden called the woman a “dog-faced, lying pony soldier” when she told him she was at a presidential campaign convention.
In July 2022 at the White House, Biden told the father of a Parkland shooting victim to ‘sit in’ at a ceremony marking the bipartisan passage of a gun bill.
“You’ll hear what I have to say,” the president told Manuel Oliver, who was heckled by the president for not doing more to reduce gun violence.
To add insult to injury, Biden said the Parkland massacre happened in 1918 instead of a hundred years ago.
volatility in the outer phase
While in office, Biden made bold announcements about Russia and China — which the White House staff quickly had to push back.
During a speech in Warsaw, Poland, in March 2022, Biden expressed support for regime change in Russia.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot stay in power,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Almost immediately a White House official told reporters that Biden didn’t mean it.
“He wasn’t discussing Putin’s power in Russia, or regime change,” said an unnamed aide.
Two months later, the White House had to practice takebacks again after Biden told reporters “Yeah… that’s a commitment we made,” when asked if the United States would defend Taiwan militarily if China invaded.
Biden was appearing at a news conference in Tokyo, Japan when he made it clear that “the idea that (Taiwan) could be taken by force … is not appropriate. This will cause turmoil in the entire region and will be another act similar to what happened in Ukraine.
The next day, Biden insisted that he had not changed US policy towards Taiwan.
Public Health
In July, in a speech on climate change, Biden told a crowd he had cancer.
“You had to put in the windshield wipers to get, literally, the oil slick out of the window,” he said of his childhood, when he grew up near refineries. “That’s why I and so many other people I grew up with have cancer.”
The White House played clean by saying Biden was referring to “non-melanoma skin cancers” he had years ago — but it wasn’t clear why the president used the present tense.
Earlier this year, the White House said Biden had a skin lesion removed from his chest that was basal cell carcinoma, a common form of skin cancer.
The White House physician said no further treatment was needed.
The President has also spoken several times about surviving a cranial aneurysm in 1988 in eerie detail.
“They had to take the top of my head a few times, to see if I had a brain,” the president joked at an event last month.
A month ago when speaking about his hospitalization, he claimed to have a nurse breathe on him while he recovered.
I had a nurse named Pearl Nelson. She would come in and do things that I don’t think you learn in nursing school.” She was whispering in my ear, I couldn’t understand, but she was whispering and she was bending over. And they actually breathed into me to make sure there was a connection, human contact.
While leaving Joint Base Andrews for Atlanta, the president fell down the steps of Air Force One in March 2021. He’s stumbled down the steps twice already this year
Secret Service agents help Biden up after he was caught in the foot and fell sideways off his bike in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware
Literal obstacles
After several months of his administration, Biden has lost his footing.
While leaving Joint Base Andrews for Atlanta, the President fell down the steps of Air Force One.
This year he fell down the stairs again, twice in the space of weeks.
First was when he boarded the plane after his whirlwind secret trip to Ukraine – with a 10-hour train ride in and out of Kiev – and a speech in Warsaw. He soon stumbled again when he left Selma, Alabama in March.
And in June, Biden’s foot noticeably got caught in a toe clip, and he fell sideways from his bike while cheering onlookers in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
