Footage has emerged showing President Joe Biden appearing disoriented after delivering a speech at the Global Fund’s Seventh Replenishment Conference last year. After concluding his remarks, the 81-year-old seemed unsure of where to go next, asking someone in the audience for guidance and lingering awkwardly on stage.
When Peter Sands, the executive director of the Global Fund, thanked him from another podium, Biden turned towards him abruptly, seemingly taken by surprise. The clip was shared on X by Republican congressman Matt Gaetz, a vocal critic of Biden, with the caption: “He’s doing it again..”
This incident has reignited questions about Biden’s fitness for another term in the Oval Office, following a series of gaffes during his presidential campaign. Another video circulating on social media shows Biden struggling to find his seat while other dignitaries remained standing during a D-Day commemoration ceremony in France.
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In the footage, Biden is seen bending over and searching for his chair while onstage with other world leaders in Normandy, remaining frozen until everyone else sat down. RNC Research shared a misleading clip of this moment on X, suggesting there was no chair behind Biden at all.
In a recent interview with TIME Magazine, President Biden seemed to mix up China’s leader Xi Jinping with Russia’s Vladimir Putin while discussing the tariffs he has imposed on Beijing. When asked if these tariffs would lead to inflation, he responded: “No, because here’s the deal. There’s a difference. I made it clear to Putin from the very beginning that – I’m not, we’re not engaging in…”
He then trailed off before adding: “For example, Trump wants a 10 percent tariff on everything. That will raise the price of everything in America,” reports the Express. TIME magazine had to include an editor’s note in the transcript of the interview stating: “Editor’s note: Biden appeared to mean Xi here, not Putin.”
This comes after a Wall Street Journal article last week where over 45 Republican and Democratic lawmakers and staffers expressed their concerns about Biden’s mental fitness. The article highlighted growing worries about Biden’s ability to engage in private meetings.
One source described a meeting with the President as uncomfortable, saying: “You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable.” Former Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy added his voice to the concerns, stating: “I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house. He’s not the same person.”
However, White House spokesman Andrew Bates dismissed these claims as a mere “political tactic” by the Republicans interviewed. He maintained that the President remains a “savvy and effective leader”.
During a chat with comedian Seth Meyers, President Biden dismissed concerns about his age, quipping: “No. 1, you got to take a look at the other guy, he’s about as old as I am,” in a cheeky nod to his 77-year-old Republican adversary Donald Trump.
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Biden added, “No. 2, it’s about how old your ideas are,” before criticizing Trump’s policies, saying, “Look, I mean, this is a guy who wants to take us back. He wants to take us back on Roe v. Wade.”
The President continued to highlight the backward trajectory Trump represented, stating, “He wants to take us back on a whole range of issues that for 50, 60 years they’ve been solid American positions.”
Concluding with a forward-looking stance, Biden asserted, “I think it’s about the future,” and reflected on his administration’s achievements: “And everything, every single thing we’ve done, and I think we’ve got some good things done … they told us we couldn’t get them done, because things were so divided.”
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