During a speech on Thursday, President Biden made a substantial gaffe when he referred to Vice President Kamal Harris as “Vice President Trump.” In the aftermath of the abysmal performance against former President Donald Trump, Biden and his campaign have been battling to recover ground and regain the faith of the Democratic Party and American voters.
The gaffe came during a solo press conference Biden delivered in Washington, D.C., amid the incessant pressure from his party to step down for a more viable candidate. “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if] I think she’s not qualified to be president,” obviously intending to refer to Kamala Harris.
Furthermore, President Biden had several other concerning moments during the Thursday press conference in which he sometimes stumbled over his words and delivered rambling responses to reporters on issues such as foreign policy and inflation. For example, Biden delivered a 7-minute-long response to a question on China where he appeared to lose focus or misspeak mid-sentence.
“Some of our European friends are going to be curtailing their investment in Russia, I mean, excuse me, in China,” Biden said. In another instance, Biden repeatedly offered a disclaimer to the press, stating, “Don’t hold me to the exact number.” Moreover, the president meandered through sentences, diverting to unrelated topics about reelection. “There’s so much we can do still. I’m determined to get it done. It’s about freedom. By the way, I’ll end this, well I’m not going to do that … Haley has to come up too,” he said.
Biden’s performance during the rare solo press conference, which appeared to somewhat mirror that of the presidential debate, sparked concern on social media from conservatives who have long called out Biden’s apparent decline in cognitive faculties. “This is horrific,” wrote conservative commentator Paul A. Szypula. Another person chimed in, “Lets hope Joe stays in and then drops out the last week of October. That would be the best.”
One person commented a clever joke, suggesting the Biden administration should invoke the 25 Amendment so that “Vice President Trump” would step into office. “Joe is totally done. They should invoke the 25th and make VP Trump president!” they wrote. Another user commented under the hilarious comment, “The only people who want him to stay in: – Jill – Trump supporters.”
However, jokes aside, there have been legitimate discussions around invoking the 25th Amendment, where Biden’s cabinet and Kamala Harris would determine the president unfit to serve. The American Tribune recently reported on a press conference hosted by Speaker Mike Johnson, who addressed calls to have Biden removed from office on these grounds.
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Watch the Biden gaffe below:
“There’s a lot of people asking about the 25th invoking the 25th amendment right now, because this is an alarming situation. As I mentioned, our adversaries see the weakness in this White House as we all do. I take no pleasure in saying that. I think this is a very dangerous situation. But you know, unfortunately, it’s not that the house that gets to determine that it’s the cabinet under the Constitution, of course, it’s the cabinet that makes that decision … I would, I would ask the Cabinet members to search their hearts. I think you know, you’ve all been reporting all day long about the panic that is ensued in the Democratic Party. I would be panicking too if I were a Democrat today and that was my nominee. I think they know they have a serious problem,” he said.
Watch Johnson below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.