Biden mixes up Kohl and Merkel in second gaffe this week
President Biden on Wednesday mixed up which German leader he spoke to at a recent Group of Seven (G7) summit, the second time in a week he has mistakenly recounted meeting with a dead European leader.
Biden told donors at a New York fundraiser a story about his trip to his first G7 meeting after taking office, when he declared “America’s back.”
“And the president of France looked at me and said, ‘For how long?’ I never thought of it this way,” Biden said. “Then, Helmut Kohl of Germany looked at me and said, ‘What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up The London Times tomorrow morning and learned that 1,000 people had broken down the doors, the doors of the British Parliament and killed some [people] on the way in [to] deny the prime minister to take office.’”
Helmut Kohl served as chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1988. He died in 2017. Angela Merkel was the German chancellor at the time of Biden’s first G7 meeting as president.
The mix-up echoed a similar instance Sunday at a Nevada campaign event, when Biden was telling the same story about his meeting with world leaders at the G7. But in that episode, Biden mistakenly named the president of France as François Mitterrand instead of Emmanuel Macron.
Mitterrand served as president of France from 1981-95. He died in 1996. Macron has been in office since 2017.
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White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre addressed the episodes during a Thursday press briefing, where she argued Biden was far from alone in periodically getting names wrong.
“Many people — elected officials — many people, they can misspeak sometimes, right? This happens. It happens to all of us. It is common,” she said, noting she has mixed up reporters before. “But I do want to make sure we don’t forget what the overall arching kind of theme, what he is trying to say about our leadership on the world stage.”
Voters have long indicated they are concerned about Biden’s age and ability to serve a second term.
An NBC News poll published this week found 76 percent of voters, including 54 percent of Democrats, said they had major or moderate concerns when asked whether Biden, 81, has “the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.”
Biden would be 86 at the end of a potential second term. The president has said it is fair for voters to consider his age, but he and his team have stressed that he should be judged on his record of achievements while in office.
His likely opponent, former President Trump, is 77 and in recent weeks has faced increasing scrutiny over his own gaffes.
Trump at one October rally appeared to confuse the leaders of Hungary and Turkey. In January, he repeatedly confused former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with his GOP primary opponent Nikki Haley, falsely claiming Haley was in charge of security during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Haley has at recent campaign events said Trump has gotten “confused,” part of her broader argument for voters to move on to a new generation of leadership.
Updated at 2:05 p.m.
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