President Joe Biden is once again going viral for a gaffe in which he claimed to have met with a long-dead leader of France shortly after taking office in the White House as commander in chief.
While delivering remarks in Las Vegas on Sunday, ahead of the Nevada primary this week, Biden hearkened back to a G-7 meeting in the United Kingdom and a gathering of NATO leaders that took place in June of 2021 in which a conversation about the U.S. Capitol breach on January 6 apparently came up.
“I sat down and I said, ‘America’s back’ and Mitterrand from Germany — I mean from France looked at me and said, ‘You know why — how long you back for?'” Biden recalled, invoking François Mitterrand, the former president of France, according to a widely shared post to X by National Pulse editor-in-chief Raheem Kassam along with a clip of the remarks.
WATCH: Joe Biden says he recently met with “Mitterand from Germany.”
Mitterand was the FRENCH President between 1981 and 1995.
He also died in 1996. pic.twitter.com/W0YPBDp69n
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) February 5, 2024
A glaring issue with that recollection is that Mitterrand, who served as president of France from 1981 to 1995, has been dead since 1996 —roughly 25 years earlier. At the time of the G-7 meeting in 2021, Emmanuel Macron was president of France.
And it’s not the first time Biden has suggested that he interacted with Mitterrand at the same meeting. Biden told a similar version of the story, including the same Mitterrand blunder, in 2022.
In both cases, the White House transcripts of Biden’s remarks showed Mitterrand’s name crossed out and replaced with Macron.
Biden is well known for making gaffes over the years, but those concerns have risen of late as he seeks a second term in the White House, fueled by the president’s age, his tendency to lose his train of thought while speaking, and moments caught on camera where he has tripped or fallen over. Biden has earned himself negative press with faulty stories he’s told, including repeating an exaggerated house fire experience.
A national poll from NBC News that was published in June of last year found growing anxiety concerning Biden‘s fitness to serve, as more than two-thirds of registered voters — 68% — said they have moderate to major concerns about him “not having the necessary mental and physical health” to be president.
Nikki Haley, who is 52 and running for the GOP presidential nomination, began her campaign last February by pushing for mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over 75 years old. In an appeal to voters who are dreading a potential 2020 rematch between former President Donald Trump, who is now 77, and Biden, who is now 81, Haley has taken to calling them “grumpy old men.”