Biden, 81, confuses Cabinet secretaries: Joe mixes up Alejandro Mayorkas and Xavier Becerra – moments after Karine Jean-Pierre said there’s nothing wrong with his mental stamina

President Joe Biden appeared to shuffle two of his Cabinet secretaries during televised speeches from the White House on Monday, in just the latest stumble amid a focus on his age and acuity.

The confusion arose during a meeting with Biden’s reproductive rights task force, as he thanked an adviser and attempted to thank a Cabinet secretary.

“I would also like to thank the gender policy advisor, my gender policy advisor, Jen Klein,” he said, before improvising a sentence.

‘Where is Jen? There you are, Jen,” ​​Biden, 81, said, pointing to his right. ‘Thank you. And Secretary Becerra, sitting next to her, for the leadership of this task force,” he continued, checking the name of Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra.

It was his Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas, who sat next to Klein during the event. The White House had said Becerra, a former member of the House of Representatives, would participate via Zoom.

The outage came just minutes after White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre defended Biden’s mental acuity and performance — during a week in which rival Donald Trump’s mental fitness has been under fire after his own mix of rivals Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi.

Jean-Pierre faced a question from Fox News’ Peter Doocy about why Americans think Biden is becoming less mentally sharp, citing recent polls on the subject.

“I have to say that’s a little confusing to me because if you look at what this president has done over the last three years, historic pieces of legislation, right?” When it comes to a bipartisan infrastructure deal, there have been many presidents — like your favorite president,” she told Doocy, in an apparent reference to Trump in a characterization that Doocy disputed.

Speaking about the Infrastructure Bill, she said: “This is legislation that will make a difference for generations to come. Right. And so this is something that this president has done. That’s pretty sharp for this president to be able to do that,” she said.

Biden looked toward Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, but mentioned Secretary Xavier Becerra

Becerra was not in the room, but reportedly participated remotely, according to the White House

The question was in reference to last week’s polls ABC News showing 47 percent showed Trump, 77, had the mental acuity to be president, compared to just 28 percent for Biden. Trump also topped Biden on physical health evaluations, with 57 percent calling him fit, compared to 28 percent for Biden.

Still, both men’s numbers were lower than a May survey, with Trump dropping 7 points in mental acuity and Biden dropping 4 points.

Trump came under fire from rival Nikki Haley over the weekend after his own accident, in which he repeatedly mixed up her name with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and bizarrely blamed Haley for security failures in Congress on 6 January.

Trump said Saturday evening that his “spirit is stronger now than it was 25 years ago.” That came after Haley asked if he was “mentally fit” following the mix-up. Trump claimed as much he took another cognitive test in New Hampshire and “passed.”

“They’re saying he got confused, he was talking about something else, he’s talking about Nancy Pelosi,” Haley said Saturday. “He mentioned me in that scenario several times. The concern I have is – I’m not saying anything derogatory – but when you’re dealing with the pressures of the presidency, we can’t have someone else who we doubt is mentally fit to do this. We can’t do that,” Haley said.

On Thursday, Biden gave a speech in North Carolina, where he briefly flustered as he tried to praise North Carolina Democratic Rep. Deborah Ross.

‘Where is Deborah? I just took a picture with her. That’s probably why she left,” he first joked.

“Oh, actually, she couldn’t be here. That is not true. I got it mixed up,” he said uncomfortably. “You know, she fights really hard for the people of this district and she’s in Washington right now.”