Joe Biden gaffe: President confuses Putin and Xi Jinping in confused and muddled interview
Biden appeared to mix up the two US adversaries' leaders
Reuters
Joe Biden has appeared to mix up the Russian and Chinese Presidents, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, in another interview which marks just the latest in a litany of verbal mishaps for the 81-year-old Commander-in-Chief.
In a sit-down interview with Time magazine, the President stumbled through a number of key policy points - which the publication itself pointed out in a "fact-check" after the interview had concluded.
When Biden was asked whether a new package of tariffs on Chinese imports to the US would see consumer prices take a jump, the President apparently became a tad confused as to the names of his country's two largest rivals on the world stage.
Biden said: "No, because here's the deal... There's a difference. I made it clear to Putin from the very beginning that - I'm not, we're not engaging in..." Biden answered, before trailing off for a moment.
Biden appeared to mix up the two US adversaries' leaders
Reuters
The 81-year-old continued: "For example, Trump wants a 10 per cent tariff on everything. That will raise the price of everything in America."
But an editor's note from Time says: "Biden appeared to mean Xi here, not Putin."
Biden suffers from a starting stutter, and has done since childhood, but his actual mixing-up of key names appears to have ramped up in recent months.
He's confused French presidents, German chancellors, and mixed up Egypt and Mexico - all in 2024.
MORE BIDEN GAFFES:
Putin and Xi met for a summit in China last month
Reuters
Opponents have slammed the Potus for his mumbling - not least when he misspoke at his State of the Union address, in which he referred to murdered nursing student Laken Riley as "Lincoln Riley".
Though Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has dismissed reports - including a Department of Justice report - that Biden's cognitive ability was not up to task, labelling it "right-wing propaganda".
But the President's blurring of Russia's Putin and China's Xi comes mere weeks after the two met in China in a summit where the US was cast as an aggressive Cold War-style hegemon sowing chaos across the world.
Xi had said Beijing and Moscow agree on the point that there should be a "political solution" to Russia's war against Ukraine, but did not give any details.
Biden had mixed up the two leaders - but was firm on Russia in a speech today
Reuters
Biden addressed crowds and visited war graves in Normandy for D-Day commemorations today
Reuters
And China has pushed forward with peace proposals for the conflict - but their plans, as unveiled last year, have been criticised by both Kyiv and its allies in the West.
But speaking today at a D-Day speech in Normandy, Biden said neither the US nor Nato would walk away from the crisis in Ukraine.
Biden said Volodymyr Zelensky's embattled nation had been invaded by a "tyrant intent on domination", and that democracy was now more at risk than at any point since the Second World War.
"Make no mistake, we will not bow down, we cannot surrender to the bullies, it is simply unthinkable. If we do, freedom will be subjugated, all Europe will be threatened" he said in an address in Colleville-sur-Mer.