Joe Biden knows he makes a lot of gaffes.
“I am a gaffe machine, but my God what a wonderful thing compared to a guy who can’t tell the truth,” he said last year, referring to President Trump.
And he sure is right. The 76-year-old is just that: A gaffe machine. Or, as the Washington Post put it, “the Lamborghini of gaffes.”
He’s done it again. The former vice president was campaigning in Iowa on Saturday. Or maybe Ohio.
“How many unsafe bridges do you still have here in Ohio?” he said to laughter from the crowd at Abby Finkenauer’s Fish Fry in Cedar Rapids. “I mean Iowa,” he said, quickly correcting himself.
In another weird occurrence, Biden is seen in one clip posted on Twitter talking to a screen, not the audience.
“Joe Biden speaking in an arena in Iowa gets confused where the camera is and keeps talking to a screen. CSPAN keeps cutting away to try and help him out…hahahahahahah,” said the post.
HILARIOUS…
Joe Biden speaking in an arena in Iowa gets confused where the camera is and keeps talking to a screen. CSPAN keeps cutting away to try and help him out…hahahahahahaha @realDonaldTrump @DonaldJTrumpJr pic.twitter.com/nF9pFV0TE1— 🇺🇸 Miguelifornia (@michaelbeatty3) November 2, 2019
The campaign trail apparently confuses Biden.
“What’s not to like about Vermont?” Biden said one day in August. Problem: He was in New Hampshire. Biden also confused Burlington, Iowa, with Burlington, Vermont.
But Iowa is home to many of Biden’s gaffes. In August, Biden said “poor kids” are just as smart as “white kids.” He also said he was vice president when he met with survivors of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, but that occurred in February 2018, after he’d let office.
He also makes a lot of gaffes during debates among candidates running for the Democratic presidential nomination.
“I would eliminate the capital gains tax. I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate of 39.5%,” he said during one debate in October.
At one point, as he was trying to attack rivals Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Biden nearly said he ended the Roe v. Wade decision that declared abortion is a constitutionally protected right.
“Senator Warren said we can’t be running any vague campaigns. We’ve got to level with people. We’ve got to level with people and tell them exactly what we’re going to do, how we’re going to get it done, and if you can get it done. I’m going to say something that is probably going to offend some people here, but I’m the only one on this stage that has gotten anything really big done — from the Violence Against Women Act to making sure that we pass[ed] the Affordable Care Act to being in a position where we, in fact, took almost a[n] … Act that kept us from going into a depression, making us — putting us in a position where I was able to end Roe — excuse me,” he said, breaking off quickly.
At another debate, Biden at one point blurted out, “go to Joe 3-0-3-3-0.” Apparently, he meant to tell viewers they should text “Joe” to 30330, but he looked out of it with the blunder.
The Biden campaign has downplayed the gaffes. Kate Bedingfield, deputy manager of the Biden campaign, said new media are applying an “unfair standard” to him.
“If you listen to what candidates say all day as they’re out campaigning — they’re out in front of cameras, they’re in front of people, they’re talking all day. Everybody’s going to slip up and misstate a name or a date or a location — it happens all the time,” she said last month on MSNBC. “It doesn’t get the outsize attention that Joe Biden gets. So I understand that’s part of being a front-runner. But I also think that people know him, [and] part of his charm is that they understand that they’re getting it straight from him. It’s not overly packaged. He’s always speaking from his heart.
“And sure, that means sometimes he’s going to misstate a couple of things, but frankly, so does every other candidate,” Bedingfield said.