President Biden described himself as the “first black woman to serve with a black president” in his latest verbal misstep, raising further questions about his fitness to lead. The 81-year-old president made the gaffe during an interview on Philadelphia’s WURD black radio station, part of an Independence Day media blitz aimed at damage control following a disastrous debate performance.
Biden appeared to struggle with his words as he recounted his tenure as vice president under Barack Obama and his decision to select Kamala Harris as his vice president. “By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, to serve with a black president,” he told host Andrea Lawful-Sanders.
In the same interview, Biden highlighted his appointment of Ketanji Brown Jackson as the first black woman to the Supreme Court and his selection of Harris as the first black woman vice president. However, his slip-up was one of several during the interview, which was intended to reassure voters that his debate performance was an isolated incident.
At another point, Biden made the odd claim that he was the “first president that got elected statewide in the state of Delaware, when I was a kid.” He also suggested he understood the black struggle for representation because he didn’t think Catholics could be president before John F. Kennedy’s election.
Biden’s reference to Jackson’s Supreme Court nomination was meant to illustrate the importance of role models. “I looked at John Kennedy and said, ‘Well, he — John — he got elected. Why can’t I get elected?’ People need things to look up to,” he said.
These lapses come amid growing concerns about Biden’s age, especially following his poor debate performance against former President Trump. Despite these concerns, Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for Biden’s re-election campaign, criticized the media for focusing on the president’s recent stumbles. “This is absurd,” Moussa tweeted. “It was abundantly clear what the president meant. This would be considered a perfectly normal speech pattern for any other person in America, and has certainly been normal for Joe Biden for his entire career. What are we even doing anymore?”
The pressure on Biden to reconsider his re-election bid has been mounting. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey recently became the most high-profile Democrat to publicly suggest that Biden evaluate his position. “The best way forward right now is a decision for the President to make,” she said. “Over the coming days, I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump.”
Despite the mounting pressure, Biden remains defiant. At a campaign rally in Wisconsin, he declared, “I’m staying in this race. I’m not letting one 90-minute debate wipe out three-and-a-half years of work.”
However, Biden’s gaffes continued at the same rally, where he mistakenly told the crowd he would beat Trump “in 2020” and confused billions with trillions while criticizing Trump’s alleged tax cuts. His gaffe about being a black woman was made during the WURD radio interview, where he appeared to mix himself up with Kamala Harris.
Biden’s frequent errors have led to speculation that he may not be fully in charge of White House policies, with some suggesting that much is handled by his close team, including Chief of Staff Jeff Zients. The White House has denied these claims.
Biden’s latest gaffe came ahead of a major interview with ABC News, which White House aides hope will quell calls from some Democrats for Biden to step back from the 2024 race. Donors, strategists, and some congressmen have argued that Biden is too old to serve a second term and that his frequent errors in public appearances risk handing the election to Trump.
The pressure on Biden’s campaign has been intense since his poor debate performance, with polls showing a significant drop in public support for Biden and a rise in trust for Kamala Harris. Some in his own party remain skeptical that the situation can be recovered.
In Thursday’s interview, when asked why voting mattered, Biden delivered an apparently unrelated answer that referred to the Supreme Court’s recent decision to grant Trump considerable immunity to prosecution. “You need someone, someone who is going to make sure that…the Supreme Court just issued a decision, by the way, that threatens the American principle that we have no kings in America,” he said.
Earlier in the day, he stumbled during a four-minute address to military families on the White House South Lawn, referring to Trump as “one of our colleagues.” These incidents have fueled further damaging revelations about Biden’s mental capacity, including suggestions that he is not cogent after 4 pm each day and sometimes forgets the names of close friends.
Despite these challenges, Biden remains publicly defiant, declaring to 20 senior governors that he was in good health. White House Press Secretary Jean-Pierre also issued a firm denial when asked whether the president has any form of dementia or degenerative brain disease. In comments to The New York Times, Biden quipped, “It’s just my brain.” Campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon added that Biden “was clearly making a joke.”
Source: The New York Times, Politico, ABC News, Philadelphia’s WURD Radio Station
