Washington: It has become almost a habit for US President Joe Biden to freeze at key moments, bringing in a major embarrassment for the country. In another goof-up, the outgoing President forgot to introduce Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the stage.
The incident occurred when he was sharing the dias with Quad leaders in Delaware on Sunday morning. During the event, the 81-year-old US President named Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japan's Fumio Kishida but when he was supposed to introduce the Indian leader, he turned totally blank. He looked visibly confused about his next step.
"Who am I introducing next?" Biden asked and then waited for seconds. "Who's next?" and he literally froze, with no idea of the next leader. However, the moderator of the event came to the rescue of President Biden and announced the name of Prime Minister Modi.
Notably, this was not the first time when Biden has made a blunder on the global level. In fact, Biden had a series of verbal slip-ups on Thursday alongside the NATO summit in Washington, an unfortunate development for the 81-year-old as he tries to move past concerns that he is too old to run for re-election.
Biden makes a series of verbal gaffes
Verbal gaffes are not unusual in the long political career of Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, but there is closer attention on him amid the fallout from his dismal debate performance against Republican candidate Donald Trump months ago. Trump, who is 78, and also has faced concerns about his age, frequently made false claims during the debate and often rambles during campaign speeches.
Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin".
"And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room. "Going to beat President Putin, President Zelenskyy. I am so focused on beating Putin," Biden said while correcting himself.
During a news conference in June, Biden mixed up the names of his vice president, Kamala Harris, and his rival Trump. "Look, I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there," Biden said as he responded to a question from Reuters about his confidence in Harris.
(With inputs from agency)
