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12th July 2024
11:35am BST
President of the United States Joe Biden mistakenly called Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy "President Putin" while introducing him at the NATO summit last night.
The 81-year-old made the verbal stumble at a time when a growing number of Democrats are calling on him to drop out as the party's presidential nominee due to concerns over his competency.
In news coverage from the event held in Washington, you can witness Zelenskyy's shock after being referred to as the dictator who has waged war on his country for the past two years.
Biden immediately realises what he has said as he steps away from the podium, and returns to the microphone: "President Putin?" he says. "He's going to beat President Putin!"
🇺🇸🇺🇦 Watch Zelensky's reaction as Biden calls him Putin 😭 pic.twitter.com/TfVoAoryDX
— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) July 11, 2024
Zelenskyy deftly handled the flubbed introduction, quipping, "I’m better."
Biden replied, "You are a hell of a lot better."
It turned out not to be POTUS' only mistake of the night.
When a reporter asked the President if he had any concerns about vice-president Kamala Harris’s ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket, he replied: "I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was not qualified to be president."
This time he didn't pick up on the Freudian slip he had made.
This very public blunder is Biden's second in just over a week.
Whilst speaking to WURD radio in Philadelphia last week, the 81-year-old mixed up his words as he tried to demonstrate his pride in working with Kamala Harris and former president Barack Obama.
He said: “By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first Black woman… to serve with a Black president.”
Campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa defended him saying: “It was clear what President Biden meant when he was talking about his historic record including a record number of appointments to the federal bench. This is not news, and the media has passed the point of absurdity here.”
Despite several democratic donors withdrawing their support for him in recent weeks, and other party members requesting that he step down as presidential nominee, Biden has vowed that he will beat Donald Trump ‘again in 2020’.
Speaking at a Democratic Party rally in Wisconsin earlier this month, the President told the crowd: “They’re trying to push me out of the race.
“Well, let me say this as clearly as I can,” he continued. “I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump. I’ll beat him again in 2020.”
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