President Joe Biden suffered another public gaffe on Thursday as he misnamed Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia as 'Yolanda' during a brief press interaction in Los Angeles. Biden's meeting with and Yulia Navalnaya and the couple's daughter Dasha Navalnaya, provided the first confirmation of Yulia's location, six days after Alexei's death in an Arctic prison was announced.
The president had a private conversation with Yulia and Dasha in a suite at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco following Alexei's death. However, he once again left everyone embarrassed after he forget Yulia's name and ended up calling her Yolanda, adding to the long list of his gaffes over the past four years.
Consoling Yulia and Dasha
"This morning I had the honor of meeting with Alexei Navalny's wife and daughter, and to state the obvious, he was a man of incredible courage and it's amazing how his wife and daughter are emulating that," Biden, 81, told reporters in San Francisco.
"We are going to be announcing the sanctions against [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, who is responsible for his death, tomorrow," the gaffe-prone commander-in-chief continued.
And then came the big shock as Biden said, "But one thing that was made clear to me is that Yolanda is gonna, she's gonna continue the fight he had underway. So we're not letting up."
Biden, the oldest president in American history at 81, then walked back to his SUV. The meeting with the Navalny family came hours after Biden publicly referred to Putin as a 'crazy S.O.B.' following Navalny's death at the age of 47.
Later, Biden also wrote on X: "Today, I met with Yulia and Dasha Navalnaya – Aleksei Navalny's loved ones – to express my condolences for their devastating loss.
"Aleksei's legacy of courage will live on in Yulia and Dasha and the countless people across Russia fighting for democracy and human rights."
White House Mum
The White House did not provide an immediate comment on the apparent name mix-up, and officials did not contest that Biden had made a mistake.
The possibility of poor audio quality affecting the clarity of words was acknowledged, and the statement's setting, in a hotel parking garage with running vehicles, posed challenges for print journalists to hear Biden, though the televised audio appeared to capture a noticeable and embarrassing error.
Biden is seeking re-election in November, although surveys, such as an ABC/Ipsos poll released on Feb. 11, indicate that an overwhelming majority of voters (86%) believe he is too old to serve another four-year term.
Yulia, an elegant 47-year-old economist, has been married to Alexei since 2000. She is widely considered a potential successor to her husband as Russia's foremost democracy advocate.
Dasha is a student at nearby Stanford University. Following the private meeting, the White House issued a statement indicating that Biden expressed his heartfelt condolences to the women for their tragic loss.
Biden also "expressed his admiration for ... Navalny's extraordinary courage and his legacy of fighting against corruption and for a free and democratic Russia in which the rule of law applies equally to everyone," the statement said.
In 2021, Biden had said that he warned Putin of "devastating" consequences if Navalny died in custody. However, hours after the reported death of the dissident, Biden told reporters, "That was three years ago. In the meantime, they faced a hell of a lot of consequences."
On Tuesday, Biden again said, "I told you we'd be announcing sanctions on Russia. We'll have a major package announced on Friday, and I'll be happy to sit with you all while doing that."
