President Joe Biden did it again, and this time it was in front of the media. Biden who was meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin for the first time since taking office, slipped up to everyone's embarrassment when he accidentally almost addressed Russian leader "President Trump."
Biden quickly corrected himself and moved on from his mistake, which was made during his post-summit press conference on Wednesday. However, the slip up soon made its way to the social media after one of the reporters present there tweeted the faux pas. And since then social media users have been cracking jokes and haven't stopped laughing.
Big Goof Up
On Wednesday Biden was meeting Putin at Geneva. The hours-long meeting had just the two leaders and their top foreign aides. Besides there were a few solo news conferences for the two leaders to comment on their conversations.
The two ceded little ground but agreed on several principles. Following that, they debriefed the media separately. While Biden was holding his first news conference following the meeting, an event that lasted about 33 minutes, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins tweeted at 1:27 pm "President Biden refers to President Putin as President Trump, then quickly corrects him."
In no time, the tweet spread like wildfire on social media, which was an accurate description of a split-second moment during Biden's news conference. Although many believed it instantly, there were many who were in disbelief that Putin could slip up, yet again. Since then, many have been trying to find out the authenticity of the claim.
Biden Corrects Himself
Fact is that Biden did actually accidentally say this. The news conference was just into its 10th minute, when he indeed referred to Putin as former President Trump, and then immediately corrected his mistake, according to PBS video recording of the news conference.
The moment unfolded like this: "I caught part of President Tru- Putin's press conference, and he talked about the need for us to be able to have some kind of modus operandi where the Arctic was in fact a free zone," said Biden.
The moment happened so fast that as Biden quickly corrected him that even C-SPAN's transcription of Biden's remarks did not document the Trump reference.
However, that didn't spare Biden from being trolled. Some social media users described fleeting moment as a "Freudian slip," or an unintentional error that revealed Biden's subconscious belief that he views Putin and Trump's political agenda as one in the same.
Some commentators even seized on the view that Trump was inappropriately friendly toward Putin while president. In fact, ahead of the meeting, Trump in a blog post once again denied any collusion with Russia during his term and also asked Biden to send Putin "my warmest regards!"
That said, no evidence substantiated that theory that Biden subconsciously or, perhaps, intentionally confused Putin with Trump as a result of his deep-seated beliefs about them.
However, many of Biden's critics on social media attempted to frame the gaffe as an example of the president's supposedly declining cognitive health that has been questioned time and again. This isn't the first time Biden slipped up. He had earlier raised a few eyebrows when at a March press conference he called Vice President Kamala Harris "President Harris."
