In a campaign speech delivered in Las Vegas on Sunday, President Biden seemed to conflate French President Emmanuel Macron with former French President Francois Mitterrand, who passed away nearly three decades ago.
The 81-year-old president inaccurately recounted a conversation with Mitterrand during a 2021 meeting with world leaders, stating that Mitterrand, from Germany, questioned how long America would be back.
The reference was to a discussion at the G7 summit where NATO heads addressed the Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
Biden’s speech portrayed a hypothetical scenario posed by the chancellor of Germany about a similar event happening in another democracy.
The official White House transcript acknowledged the error, noting that Biden misspoke Mitterrand instead of Macron, who has been the French president since 2017.
Francois Mitterrand served as the president of France for two terms from 1981 to 1995, passing away on January 8, 1996, at the age of 79.
This verbal misstep adds to a series of gaffes that President Biden has made since taking office. The majority of his speech focused on criticizing former President Trump, accusing him of leaving the nation in disarray before leaving office.
As Trump, aged 77, appears to be securing the GOP nomination for the upcoming presidential election, it sets the stage for a potential rematch of the 2020 election between the two candidates.
