Joe Biden’s campaign offers latest bizarre excuse for his blunders
President Joe Biden has been making mistakes for years and will continue to do so, one of his top advisers warned Friday.
“Joe Biden has been making blunders for 40 years. He made a few last night. He’ll probably continue to make blunders,” Biden’s campaign communications director Michael Tyler said.
He was asked about Biden’s major blunders at NATO on Thursday, including introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” and naming Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
Recognizing that more blunders are coming is either a brilliant political strategy or simply acknowledging reality. Biden has made mistakes since entering the White House, and he shows no signs of changing.
President Joe Biden’s campaign said the 81-year-old would continue to make blunders
The White House did not address other controversial topics when it briefed reporters traveling to Michigan on Friday for the president’s campaign event in the pivotal state.
Spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre would not have made it if Biden had spoken to former President Barack Obama after his disastrous performance during the debate.
Former Obama advisers are among those pressuring Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Obama reportedly received a signal from George Clooney that the actor was writing an op-ed calling for Biden’s resignation.
The campaign also declined to answer questions about Biden’s work habits after the president told governors he would stop working at 8 p.m.
“No one will work harder to defeat Donald Trump than the President of the United States, Joe Biden,” Tyler said.
“We’re going to continue doing interviews,” Tyler added.
Biden himself opposed that report during the press conference on Thursday.
“That’s not true,” he said, laughing. “Look, what I said was that it would be smarter if I took it easy, instead of starting every day at 7 o’clock in the evening and going to bed at midnight,” Biden said.
He said it would be better, for example, to move a fundraiser forward an hour. “Start at 8 o’clock, then people can go home at 10 o’clock,” Biden said.
However, gaffes remain a major theme in Biden’s campaign.
They have a way of sticking in voters’ minds that could obliterate any other message. By embracing them, the campaign could shift to a “that’s Joe Biden” strategy.
And that’s an unfortunate misstep for the 81-year-old president who is trying to convince voters he is mentally capable of running for a second term.
Several senior Biden advisers were in the front row at his press conference when he called Harris “Trump,” and responded sharply and visibly.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan were seen on camera when the president made the mistake.
Sullivan clapped his hand over his mouth and Blinken looked somber, as if staring into space as the president undermined his re-election chances.
Only Austin seemed to have his gaze under control. He stared at the Commander-in-Chief without blinking, even trying to nod slightly in agreement.
But Biden, who stuttered as a child, has a history of gaffes in his more than 40 years in politics.
He has confused world leaders before.
In February, Biden falsely claimed he met Francois Mitterrand, who died in 1996, at the 2021 G7 summit.
That same week, he said he had spoken to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, about the January 6 riots, which took place in 2021.
In September 2022, during a White House event, Biden invoked the address of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car crash the month before.
“Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?”
The White House defended him by saying he was thinking of Walorsky.
At other times, the president mumbled and searched for words, as during the first presidential debate.
The blunders date back to the years he was vice president.
In September 2008, Biden attended an event in Missouri, where he attacked a senator.
“I hear that Senator Chuck Graham is here. Stand up, Chuck, let them see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about. I’ll tell you, you’ll make everybody stand up, bro,” he said.
Graham was in a wheelchair.
The White House would not say whether President Biden has spoken to Barack Obama (above) since the presidential debate
Secretary of State Antony Blinken (left), Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan struggled to contain their reactions to Biden’s mistake
White House staffers are accused of conducting a three-and-a-half-year plot to hide Biden’s shortcomings from the press and the world.
Aides closest to the 81-year-old used a variety of tactics to cover up his shortcomings, including restricting reporters’ access to him, giving the president shorter steps on Air Force One and surrounding him in public to hide his stiff gait, a former Biden aide told DailyMail.com.
Biden also received large postcards with the most basic instructions for almost every event, and he kept to a stricter daily schedule so he could get more sleep.
There were even staff tasked with devising strategies to prevent the president from falling, the source said.
But during his press conference on Thursday evening, Biden made it clear that he is staying in the race.
He noticed The only way he will leave is if his staff “come to me and say there is no way they can win.”