President Joe Biden has again claimed that he was speaking with a deceased dignitary at the 2021 G7 Summit, marking the second time in a week that the president appears to reference a meeting with a deceased leader.
The 81-year-old president, speaking in Las Vegas on Monday, told an anecdote about attending the summit in England in June 2021, where he referenced speaking with French President Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, instead. of current leader Emmanuel Macron.
On Wednesday, Biden told a similar anecdote about the summit at two fundraisers in New York. according to a group report. He argued, as he did on Monday, telling the anecdote to other leaders at the summit, that “America is back” and that the president of France, whom Biden did not name this time, responded: “For how long? “.
Biden said he had “never thought about it this way,” then claims German Chancellor Helmut Kohl addressed him about the nature of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Kohl died in 2017 and was not at the 2021 summit.
President Joe Biden twice described a meeting at the 2021 G7 Summit with former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, the second time the president appears to reference a meeting with a deceased leader this week.
“Helmut Kohl of Germany looked at me and said, ‘What would you say, Mr. President, if tomorrow morning you read the Times of London and found out that there were 1,000 people breaking down the doors of the British Parliament, killing some (inaudible) along the way?’ towards the entrance?” to deny the next prime minister taking office. And you think, what would we think?’ Biden stated.
Biden met German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G7 summit, but Kohl died on June 16, 2017, and had not been chancellor since 1998.
At the other fundraiser in New York, he recounted a similar meeting, mentioned Macron, and then told the same story about the hypothetical Kohl.
Biden’s mix-up is just the latest gaffe from the famously folksy president, who stuttered as a child and has referred to himself as a “gaffe machine.”
Like Merkel, 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 with Mitterrand, when he was a young senator. It is unclear whether there are any meetings between Biden and Kohl, who was chancellor from 1982 to 1998.
Mitterrand took office in 1981, when the current French president was three years old.
Biden, as chairman of the European Affairs Committee, met with Mitterrand in January 1988 while discussing a Soviet nuclear arms treaty.
Biden, seen here walking with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the G7 Summit on June 11, 2021. In an anecdote he told to donors twice on Wednesday in New York, he said the chancellor at the time was Helmut Kohl.
Kohl died on June 16, 2017 and had not been chancellor since 1998.
Earlier in the week, Biden appeared to confuse current French President Emmanuel Macron with his predecessor, Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996.
Recounting 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.
Mitterrand was president until 1995 and died a year later, at the age of 79.
It is the latest in a growing list of mistakes made by the president since he took office.
The 81-year-old has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq, rather than at Walter Reed, and in June 2023 he confused the ongoing war in Ukraine with the Iraq war, which ended in 2011.
He declared that Russia’s Vladimir Putin was “clearly losing the war in Iraq.”
That same month, he closed 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 she was referring to 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 boasted about infrastructure spending, saying it was: “Over a billion, 300 million, trillion, 300 million dollars.”
Biden also criticized Donald Trump’s gaffes, pointing out that Trump refers to “the beginning of World War II,” which is now over, and confuses Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.
“He’s a little confused these days,” Biden said.
Biden’s confusion is just the latest gaffe by the famously folksy president. He has repeatedly said that his son Beau died in Iraq, rather than at Walter Reed.
Biden has previously said he confused the war in Ukraine with the war in Iraq and declared that Vladimir Putin was “clearly losing the war in Iraq.”
About 49 percent of Democrats admit that Joe Biden is too old to be president in our survey of likely 2024 voters last year. Only 28 percent believe he is the right age
The White House on Tuesday refused to be swayed by questions about President Biden’s fitness for the job.
A journalist pointed out Biden’s mistake on Monday in confusing French leaders during the daily White House briefing a day later, when he asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre how the president would address about three-quarters. of the population concerned about their physical and mental health.
“I’m not even going to go down that rabbit hole with you, sir,” was his brief response.
When the reporter objected that this was not a rabbit hole, she expanded on her response and listed Biden’s recent busy schedule.
“You saw the president in Las Vegas, in California,” he said. —You have seen the president in South Carolina. You saw it in Michigan. I’ll leave it there.’
The episode only served to highlight Biden’s increasing age. At 81 years old, he is already the oldest president in history, and he is running for another term that would keep him in office until he is 86 years old.
A DailyMail.com poll last year found that 70 percent of voters thought Biden was too old to be president. That included more than half of Democrats, demonstrating the challenge he faces in his campaign for a second term.