Joe Biden’s Weirdest Verbal Slip-Ups 》

After having what might have been history’s worst presidential debate participation, Joe Biden reluctantly stepped down for the upcoming 2024 presidential election. He endorsed Kamala Harris to run for the big job, and so far, many people feel energized by the prospect of voting for Biden’s vice president.

However, that awful debate performance had us remembering some of Biden’s craziest verbal screw-ups. Defenders will always claim he just had the occasional slip-up, but the truth is that when you have this many and when they are this strange, it makes you look terrible.

Don’t believe us? Keep reading to discover Joe Biden’s weirdest verbal slip-ups!

Claiming to have cancer

For better or for worse, being the president means keeping the public confident in your abilities. Biden’s many verbal gaffes had already created widespread speculation that he might be hiding some kind of major illness. And the president seriously encouraged this speculation when he accidentally claimed to have cancer.

In July 2022, Biden gave a speech at the Brayton Point Power Station in Massachusetts. He was supposed to discuss his commitment to fighting climate change, but things went off the rails when he began discussing growing up near Delaware’s oil refineries. “You had to put on your windshield wipers to get, literally, the oil slick off the window,” he said. “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up [with] have cancer and why can — for the longest time, Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”

A spokesperson quickly clarified online that Biden doesn’t have cancer and that he was remembering when he had some non-melanoma skin cancers previously removed. Unfortunately, even some of Biden’s biggest defenders didn’t believe that claim and began worrying about the president’s mental health.

Implying only non-white kids are poor

In 2019, Joe Biden was on the campaign trail and made a speech at an Iowa town hall with the Asian and Latino Coalition. The speech had some great moments, but Biden effectively threw them all away with this crazy verbal gaffe. “We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it,” he said. “Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids.”

It was a terrible slip-up all around. It sounded like this presidential contender was implying that only non-white children could be poor…given Biden’s history of angering Black voters, this moment seriously jeopardized his presidential chances. To his credit, Biden tried to immediately correct himself, adding “Wealthy kids, black kids, Asian kids.” However, the damage was done, especially because this moment gave ammo to Donald Trump, who later claimed this slip-up was proof that his opponent was “not playing with a full deck.”

Not knowing who Kamala Harris is

From the outside looking in, Joe Biden has a great working relationship with Kamala Harris. After all, he endorsed her to run for president after he stepped down, and that endorsement helped the rest of the Democratic leadership embrace her. If Harris ends up making history by becoming the first female president, then Joe Biden will be positively remembered by historians for helping to make that happen.

However, some can’t help but ask that if Biden likes Harris so much, why doesn’t he ever seem to know who she is? For example, during an Equal Pay Day event in March 2022, Biden accidentally called his vice president the First Lady…in other words, he mistook his work partner for his own wife, Jill Biden. Not a good look, Joe!

Of course, it not only could get worse but did get worse. After Biden’s disastrous debate against former president Trump (the same debate that went so poorly that he eventually dropped out of the campaign), Biden accidentally referred to Kamala as “Vice President Trump.” This slip-up hurt more than most because it made the public even less confident in Biden’s mental health right when he needed a boost.

General confusion about Russia and the Ukraine

Many of Joe Biden’s defenders say that we should be less focused on his many (and we do mean many) verbal slip-ups and more focused on his policies. As an example, one of the more admirable things that Biden has done as president is to help support Ukraine after Russia invaded. Of course, that material support might be even more meaningful if Biden didn’t seem so frequently confused about all things Russia and Ukraine.

In June 2023, for example, someone asked Biden if Vladimir Putin had “been weakened by recent events.” In response, the president said, “It’s hard to tell but he’s clearly losing the war in Iraq [and] he’s losing the war at home.” Needless to say, Biden’s conflating Iraq and Ukraine made many wonder if he really cared about this conflict.

That speculation got worse in July 2024 when he accidentally called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin” by mistake. Um, Joe, do you seriously not even know who’s who or where they are even fighting?!?