Year Ender 2023: A collection of Biden’s gaffes and all the oops moments

US President Joe Biden’s gaffes are becoming more and more frequent but perhaps 2023 is the year he is going to close with a record number of them. From verbal slip-ups to near-fall incidents, Biden, whose age is often targeted by opposition leaders and remains a concern for voters, has had all. The 81-year-old Biden has given hearty laughs to many and has shocked others with his blunder-prone personality. Here we have compiled a list of them rewinding his gaffes and oops moments in 2023. 

While the president was deboarding Air Force One in the US state of Michigan on September 26, he slipped from the stairs. Rushing to address the age challenge Biden is believed to be facing, his administration at the time was reported to have been taking steps to avoid tripping. While he was getting down from the plane, Biden lost his footing for a moment. 

Biden, who is running for the presidency in the next 2024 elections, has reportedly been wearing tennis shoes. As a caution, he is always making use of a shorter stairway to Air Force One. The US President has also been getting his body balance back with the aid of a physical therapist for the past two years.

In another such incident on July 14, Biden tripped on steps of Air Force One when he was walking up to board the presidential plane in Finland. 

When Biden was addressing US troops stationed in Alaska on the anniversary of 9/11 terrorist attack on September 11, 2023, he said he visited New York on September 11, 2001, a day after the tragic attack. He reportedly said that he surveyed the damage from Ground Zero.

It was factually incorrect, as Biden only visited Ground Zero on September 20 and not the day following the attack. 

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre cut off Biden in the middle of remarks as he was responding to a query from a reporter. This incident occurred during a press conference in Hanoi, Vietnam, on September 10.

Biden was saying something incomprehensible in response to the query when White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre jumped in and said, “thank you everybody, this ends the press conference.” 

Later, Biden, who picks himself sometimes over his age, said, “I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed.” 

Everything was going well until Biden hung a medal around the neck of retired Army Captain Larry Taylor in honour for his service in the Vietnam War. At this point, a clueless Biden walked out of the East Room even was the ceremony was not over. 

Throwing the awkward situation under the rug, WH Press Secretary Jean-Pierre said that it was a precautionary measure against Covid-19. The incident took place on September 5. 

Biden was factually incorrect when on August 9 he said that he declared climate change a national emergency. He later clarified that he has declared an emergency “in practice.”

Joe Biden did not give a chance to let the anchor close the interview and just left as soon as he was done. To many, it may have appeared impolite but to others it was just his age showing up. Biden rose from his chair and walked off the set of a live MSNBC interview with Nicole Wallace on June 29.

US President Joe Biden mistakenly referred to his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “Vladimir” during the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. Vladimir, of course, is the first name of Putin, the president of Russia, which is engaged in a long war with Ukraine.

“Vladimir and I…I shouldn’t be so familiar,” said Biden during a press conference. He quickly realised that he committed a mistake and immediately corrected himself.

“Mr Zelensky and I talked about the kind of guarantees we could make in the meantime when I was in Ukraine and when we met in other places,” Biden added.

This was a mix-up when the US president on June 27, while backing Ukraine, called Russia’s attacks as an “onslaught on Iraq”.

This incident took place at a fundraiser in Maryland. Only a day later, he added insult to the injury by saying that Putin is “clearly losing the war in Iraq”. 

In November 2023, the gaffe-prone Biden made a similar mistake when he said that inflation on “a war in Iraq . . .excuse me, the war in Ukraine”.

He made the blunder during a speech in South Florida.

Leaving behind countries and leaders, Biden did not even leave the royal family alone as he concluded his speech on gun control on June 16 saying “God save the queen, man.”

Even his White House deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton was also taken aback.

Again in damage control, Dalton reportedly told media personnel in an email that it is not clear what Biden said meant and that the president was speaking to someone in the crowd.

The latest verbal stumble in his infra-spending speech this month added to a series of gaffes Biden. He is now facing scrutiny after a speech in Las Vegas where he seemingly conjured up an astronomical number boasting about his administration’s infrastructure spending. 

This gaffe was swiftly downplayed by the White House in an official transcript which looked like it tried to clarify it was a teleprompter error.

The comment by Biden, which was initially meant to target former president Donald Trump, triggered online mockery for the US president himself, with critics likening Biden to a child inventing numbers. 

(With inputs from agencies)