Will his state of health allow him to keep the White House?
In a report of almost 400 pages, which does not recommend prosecution against Joe Biden in the classified documents affair, a prosecutor pointed out his age (81 years) and his memory problems.
“I mean well, I’m an old man and I know what I’m doing, damn it,” the American president defended.
I don't have memory problems.
» But the repeated blunders in recent weeks raise questions and could well give Donald Trump an advantage.
The report which denounces
There are no images or audio recordings.
There is only one version: that of the special prosecutor responsible for investigating the withholding of confidential documents by Joe Biden.
In a 388-page report, published Thursday evening, Robert Hur lists the American president's “lapses” in memory during their interview.
He describes “a friendly, well-meaning elderly man with a bad memory.”
“He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended, and forgetting on the second day when his term began,” the prosecutor wrote.
“He didn’t even remember the death of his son Beau.
And his memory seemed fuzzy when he described the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him,” he continues.
When he gets geography wrong
This seems like a good intention… but the result is dramatic.
Sunday, during a campaign meeting in Las Vegas, Joe Biden wanted to talk about a G7 summit in June 2021. “I sat down, and I said:
America is back
,” continued Joe Biden .
“And Mitterrand, from Germany… from France looked at me and said:
How long are you back?
» Problem, as the transcription of the speech revealed by the White House underlines, it does not mention Mitterrand nor Germany… but France and Emmanuel Macron.
VIDEO.
Joe Biden confuses Macron with Mitterrand….
and France with Germany
In the same vein, the American president mentioned during a fundraising meeting on Wednesday evening, “Helmut Kohl, the German”, whom he would have met during this same G7 summit in 2021. Problem: Helmut Kohl, if he is indeed German, was only at the head of the government between 1982 and 1998. Worse: he died in 2017. It was Angela Merkel who was at the head of the country at that time.
Thursday evening, it was Egypt and Mexico that Joe Biden confused.
When discussing the situation in the Middle East, the Democratic president considered that “the conduct of the response in the Gaza Strip is excessive.
I think that... You know, originally the president of Mexico, Sissi, didn't want to open the passage to let in humanitarian aid.
I talked to him, I convinced him to open the border post.
»
VIDEO.
After “Mitterrand of Germany”, President Joe Biden confuses Egypt and Mexico
A few months earlier, in March 2022, Joe Biden had already made a mistake when mentioning the situation in Ukraine, at the very beginning of the Russian invasion.
“Putin can surround kyiv with tanks, but he will never win the hearts and souls of the Iranian people,” Joe Biden said, obviously confusing the Iranian people with the Ukrainian people.
When he talks about dead people
As before the special prosecutor, Joe Biden – then not yet president – had in November 2020 presented to the crowd “Beau”, his son who died a few years earlier of cancer.
“This is my son Beau Biden, who many of you helped elect to the Delaware Senate.
This is my granddaughter Natalie,” he noted, also confusing his granddaughter (it was Finnegan).
“Oh no, wait, it’s not the right one,” he corrected himself.
Joe Biden introducing his granddaughter:
“This is my son Beau Biden who a lot of you helped elect to the senate in Delaware.
This is my granddaughter, Natalie.
Oh no wait, I got the wrong one.”pic.twitter.com/zYjGdA1iwt
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) November 3, 2020
In the “dead people” series, Joe Biden also addressed a parliamentarian in September 2022 who had died the month before in a car accident (after which he said he was “shocked and saddened” in a press release).
“Where’s Jackie?”
he asked during a speech dedicated to the fight against obesity and food insecurity, referring to former member of the House of Representatives Jackie Walorski and looking for her in the crowd.
“He thought very strongly of her”, “I don’t find it disturbing”, defended the White House spokesperson.
Joe Biden's age is a major concern among voters, according to polls.
Opinion surveys reveal that this is less the case for Donald Trump, aged 77 and also a presidential candidate in November.
But the former Republican president also has his moments of confusion.
In January, in a speech, he confused his rival for the Republican nomination Nikki Haley with the former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.