Joe Biden has appeared to mix up North and South Korea while making jabs at Donald Trump at a fundraiser in yet another vocal blunder for the President.
Biden was giving his predecessor – and possible successor – a verbal dressing-down for meeting North Korea’s Supreme Leader throughout his tenure at a closed-doors event in California on Friday.
But when the time came to stick the landing on one particular dig, the President fell just short, telling delegates how Trump took pride in receiving “love letters from South Korean President Kim Jong-un”.
The gaffe will come as a particular embarrassment to the President, who has taken steps to forge a tight alliance with South Korea, and has met its actual president, Yoon Suk Yeol, on multiple occasions.
Biden appeared to claim Kim Jong-un ran the show in South Korea, not his native North
Reuters/Getty
Biden has made official appearances alongside Yoon in both their respective nations; in the US last year, the pair met for a White House State Dinner in April and a Camp David summit in August, while Biden visited South Korea in 2022 after Yoon entered office.
At the White House, Biden invited Yoon to sing Don McLean’s classic hit “American Pie”, and gifted the South Korean leader a guitar signed by the legendary rocker on stage.
Despite Friday’s mix-up, Biden appeared to know who Yoon was last year when he unforgettably belted out the first few stanzas of the song in English – and in tune – in front of an astonished crowd.
And South Korea wasn’t the only North-East Asian ally which fell victim to a Biden blunder in recent days; at another donor bash in Washington DC, the President appeared to accuse fellow regional partner Japan of being “xenophobic”.
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Biden gifted the South Korean premier a guitar signed by legendary rocker Don McLean last year
Reuters
At the fundraiser, which marked the start of “Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month”, the President detailed why he thought the American economy was stronger than that of a set of Asian nations.
Biden said: “Why is China stalling so badly economically? Why is Japan having trouble? Why is Russia? Why is India? Because they’re xenophobic… They don’t want immigrants.”
The remarks sent White House Press Secretary Karin Jean-Pierre scrambling to cover for the President.
Jean-Pierre said: “I think the broader case that he was trying to make, which I think most leaders and allies across the globe understand, is he was saying that when it comes to who we are as a nation, we are a nation of immigrants, that is in our DNA.”
Biden’s Korean mix-up follows the shock reveal last month that the President has made at least 148 gaffes and public blunders so far this year, which White House communications staff have had to fix for official transcripts.
The 81-year-old president has stumbled in 118 statements, speeches or comments made between January 1 and April 24.
According to a review of official White House records conducted by the Daily Caller, communications personnel had to make the edits in order to align Biden’s words with his public policy stances.
Biden’s starting stutter – a problem from which he has suffered since childhood, but one which appears to have ramped up in recent months – will only serve as more ammunition for his electoral opponent Donald Trump, who’s seeking to become just the second Commander-in-Chief to serve two non-consecutive terms in the Oval Office, with Grover Cleveland achieving the same feat in the 19th century.
Source Agencies
