As questions and concerns mount about President Joe Biden’s fitness to serve another term—or even continue campaigning as the Democratic nominee—the 81-year-old didn’t help his case by making two embarrassing slips of the tongue on Thursday evening.
Between introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” and referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” Biden’s faux pas are easy fodder for memes and mockery on social media, including from his Republican rival former President Donald Trump.
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And it’s not the first time he’s mixed up names. Earlier this year, Biden mistakenly referred to former German Chancellor Angela Merkel as her late predecessor Helmut Kohl; similarly confused French President Emmanuel Macron with his late predecessor François Mitterrand; and called Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi the “President of Mexico.”
But some of Biden’s defenders have been quick to point out that there’s no shortage of similar brow-raising blunders over the years from Trump, who is 78.
Indeed, in 2018, while Trump was still serving as President, he introduced Marillyn Hewson, then CEO of Lockheed Martin, as “Marillyn Lockheed” at a White House event. At another White House meeting the following year, Trump famously referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple.”
Last September, Trump appeared to mix up Biden with former President Barack Obama—not for the first or last time. The same month, he stumbled over the distinction between former President George W. Bush and his brother Jeb Bush, who ran against Trump in the 2016 Republican primary. In October, Trump called Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán “the leader of Turkey.” And in November, he said, apparently confusing the population of North Korea or the leader of China, “Kim Jong Un leads 1.4 billion people, and there is no doubt about who the boss is. And they want me to say he’s not an intelligent man.”
As recently as January, during a campaign speech, Trump mixed up former House speaker Rep. Nancy Pelosi and former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley, repeating the latter’s name several times as he talked about the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, which he has frequently blamed Pelosi and other Democrats for.
It’s not just the names of world leaders that Trump has trouble remembering. Last month, he told his supporters at a rally that Biden “should take a cognitive test like I did,” boasting that he had “aced” one administered by “Doc Ronny Johnson”—apparently thinking of but misnaming former White House physician Ronny Jackson.
While experts have stated that mixing up or blanking on names is not necessarily a sign of cognitive decline, Trump has vehemently denied that he has made any blunders at all.
“Tim Apple” was simply a moniker to “save time & words,” he said. He uses Obama’s name in place of Biden’s “sarcastically,” he’s claimed. And at a rally in February, he said he “purposely interposed names,” after drawing scrutiny for his muddling of Pelosi and Haley. “I’m a great speaker,” Trump insisted.