President Joe Biden has been making gaffes for years and will continue to do so, one of his top aides warned on Friday.
‘Joe Biden has been making gaffes for 40 years. He made a couple of last night. He will probably continue to do so,’ Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said.
He was asked about the brutal gaffes Biden made a NATO on Thursday, including introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as ‘President Putin‘ and calling Vice President Kamala Harris ‘Vice President Trump.’
The admission that there are more gaffes to come is either brilliant political strategy or simply acquiescing to reality. Biden has made mistakes since he entered the White House and shows no signs of changing.
President Joe Biden’s campaign said the 81-year-old would continue to make gaffes
The White House didn’t address other controversial topics when it briefed reporters traveling to Michigan on Friday for the president’s campaign event in the critical battleground state.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre wouldn’t save if Biden has spoke to former President Barack Obama since his disastrous debate performance.
Former Obama aides are among those working to pressure Biden to exit the presidential race and Obama is said to have gotten a head’s up from George Clooney that the actor was writing an op-ed calling for Biden to step down.
The campaign also wouldn’t address questions about Biden’s work habits after a report the president told governors he would stop working at 8 pm.
‘Nobody is going to work harder to beat Donald Trump than the President of the United States Joe Biden,’ Tyler said.
‘We’re gonna continue to sit down for interviews,’ Tyler added.
Biden, himself, pushed back on that report at Thursday’s press conference.
‘That’s not true,’ he said, laughing. ‘Look, what I said was instead of my every day starting at 7 o’clock and going to go to bed at midnight, it’d be smarter for me to pace myself a little bit more,’ Biden said.
He said it would be better, for example, to push forward a fundraiser by an hour. ‘Start at 8 – people get to go home by 10,’ Biden said.
Gaffes, however, remain a central issue for Biden’s campaign.
They have a way of sticking in voters’ minds that could erase any other message. By embracing them, the campaign could be turning to a ‘that’s Joe Biden’ strategy.
And they’re an unfortunate stumble for the 81-year-old president who is trying to convince voters he has the mental capacity for a second term in office.
Several senior Biden advisers were in the front row of his press conference when he called Harris ‘Trump’ and had a sharp, visible reaction.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan were on camera when the president made the flub.
Sullivan put his hand to his mouth and Blinken allowed his gaze to drop dolefully as if staring off into space as the president poured gasoline on his chances of re-election.
Only Austin appeared to control his gaze, staring unblinkingly at the commander-in-chief and even attempting a slight nod of agreement.
But Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, has a history of making gaffes throughout his more than 40 years in politics.
He has mixed up world leaders before.
In February, Biden mistakenly claimed to have met Francois Mitterand, who died in 1996, at the G7 summit in 2021.
The same week, he said that he had spoken to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, who died in 2017, about the January 6 riots, which happened in 2021.
In September 2022, Biden, at a White House event, called out to Rep. Jackie Walorski, who had died in a car accident in the previous month.
‘Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?’
The White House defended him by saying Walorski was on his mind.
At other times, the president has mumbled and fumbled for words, as he did in the first presidential debate.
The gaffes go back to his years as vice president.
In September 2008, Biden was at an event in Missouri where he called out a state senator.
‘I’m told Chuck Graham, state senator, is here. Stand up Chuck, let ’em see you. Oh, God love you. What am I talking about. I’ll tell you what, you’re making everybody else stand up, though, pal,’ he said.
Graham was in a wheelchair.
The White House wouldn’t say if 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 Advisor Jake Sullivan struggled to contain their reactions at a Biden flub
White House aides have been accused of carrying out a plot over three-and-a-half years to hide Biden’s deficiencies from the press and the world.
Staff closest to the ailing 81-year-old deployed a multitude of tactics to hide his deficiencies – limiting reporter access to him, giving the president smaller stairs for Air Force One and physically surrounding him in public to hide his stiff walk, a former Biden aide tells DailyMail.com.
Biden has also been given large-print notecards with the most basic of instructions written on them for almost every event and kept to a tighter daily schedule so he can get more sleep.
There was even staff charged with devising strategies to keep the president from falling down, the source said.
But, at his press conference on Thursday night, Biden made it clear he’s stay in the race.
He noted the only way he’ll leave is if his staff ‘came to me and said there’s no way you can win.’