(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Joe Biden—who has repeatedly claimed that his mental acuity is intact—stumbled over his words during a speech at the Governors Ball on Sunday, this time falsely calling Xi Jinping “the head of Russia.”
The Biden gaffe occurred as he reflected on his foreign policy experience, even attempting to joke about his age. “I’ve been around. I know I don’t look it,” he claimed before botching his Xi story.
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Xi Jinping, somebody whom I have a great deal of differences with,” he said. “When I was vice president, my president told me that he wanted me to know Xi Jinping because it was clear he was going to be head of Russia – of China.”
Biden again claims he “traveled 17,000 miles” with China’s Xi Jinping, who he calls the “head of Russia.”
“This has been documented and it’s real!”
(It isn’t — the story has been repeatedly debunked) pic.twitter.com/jZs07iC4hv
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2024
This time, the White House did not stealth-edit the transcript of Biden’s remarks. However, the confusion regarding which country Xi ruled was not the sole misstep in Biden’s speech.
Biden repeated the demonstrably false claim that he “traveled 17,000 miles” with Xi after former President Barack Obama tasked him to meet the Chinese leader, then vice president of China.
“So, I traveled 17,000 miles with him throughout the country — our country and — and in — in China, as well,” Biden specifically claimed. However, even Glenn Kessler, the Washington Post’s fact-checker—whose leanings aren’t particularly conservative—debunked this claim.
Giving Biden three Pinocchios for the made-up figure, Kessler reported that Biden has met Xi several times over the years, but he had never traveled with the Chinese leader for such a long distance. “Biden is using a figure that cannot be verified in a misleading way,” Kessler wrote.
Biden also stumbled over his words while attempting to recite a quote from former President Abraham Lincoln—whose ties to the Biden family recently surfaced as the 16th president pardoned Biden’s great-great-grandfather.
“[Lincoln] said, ‘We’re not enemies, but we’re friends.’ This is in the middle of — this is in the — in the part of the Civil War. He said, “We’re not enemies, but we’re friends. We must not be enemies,” Biden claimed.
Biden completely malfunctions as he tries — and fails miserably — to read a quote from “the man behind me here” pic.twitter.com/anLx6NEAPx
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2024
However, Biden’s version of the quote is a tad inaccurate. Lincoln’s exact remarks during his first inaugural, according to the Library of Congress, were: “I am loth to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.”
Shortly thereafter, Biden appeared visibly confused, asking an aide, “I’m right here?”
Biden wraps up his remarks and immediately gets confused as he asks his handlers: “I’m right here?” pic.twitter.com/PMFCVHH2yr
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 25, 2024
