It was the gaffe heard around a world that is closely watching signs that President Joe Biden’s age could become a deciding factor in who leads the United States — and helms the powerful nation’s foreign policy.
Biden’s comment during his closing remarks at the NATO summit in Washington appeared to confuse Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Biden said as he introduced Zelenskyy, “President Putin.”
He quickly corrected himself, turning back to the lectern and saying: “President Putin? He’s gonna beat President Putin! President Zelenskyy.”
Zelenskyy played off Biden’s save: “I’m better,” he said of his wartime enemy, as he shook Biden’s hand amid scattered laughter from the audience.
Media outlets from Japan to France featured the slipup on their front pages, with several noting that Biden also went on to call his vice president, Kamala Harris, “Vice President Trump.”
In Asia, all five major Japanese TV networks reported on Biden’s mistake, as did newspapers in Singapore, South Korea, India, Hong Kong and China.
China’s hawkish Global Times newspaper ran a story headlined: “Biden’s statement of ‘Ukrainian President Putin’ worries foreign media.” It was also a top search topic on China’s X-like social media platform Weibo.
News outlets in Saudi Arabia and Egypt also noted the slipup, and Qatari network Al Jazeera said, “Biden’s gaffes mount and calls for his withdrawal increase.”
In Europe, British right-leaning newspaper The Telegraph declared scathingly: “Biden looks finished — there’s surely no coming back from this.” The public broadcaster BBC said the gaffes “mar fightback” for Biden.
Meanwhile, French TV channel BFMTV ran a comment from President Emmanuel Macron saying Biden strikes him as a man “in charge” and that memory lapses “happen to all of us.” The French media was less kind. Le Parisien’s opening line was “Joe Biden screws up again,” and French daily newspaper Le Figaro called the incident “a monumental blunder” by Biden.
Germany’s Die Welt newspaper headlined with the story on the gaffe and noted that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz also appeared to defend Biden by saying, “Mistakes happen and if you always observe everyone enough, you will find enough.”
In Ukraine, no officials appeared to have reacted to the mistake as of Friday morning. There was, however, some Ukrainian chatter on social media.
On X, one commentator said: “Joe Biden called me Ryan Gosling.”
In Facebook comments made below the story by one of the country’s leading newspapers, Ukrainska Pravda, one commentator said: “I will not be surprised if he puts weapons in Russia instead of Ukraine. Dear Leonid Ilyich looked better at 82,” referring to Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who became the butt of many jokes in his declining years for his colorful gaffes and slips of the tongue and who died at age 75.
Others called Biden “grandpa” and some said they felt sorry for him. “It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad,” another commenter said.
Biden has been one of Ukraine’s most ardent supporters, while presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has said he would settle the war in Ukraine in the first 24 hours of his presidency, raising concerns in Ukraine about what that could mean for the country’s struggle against the Kremlin.
Meanwhile in Russia, foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova was quick to react in a post on Telegram, sarcastically calling Biden’s gaffe a sign that he is “a pro-Russian candidate” controlled by the “hand of the Kremlin.”
Russia’s state Channel One noted during its Friday-morning newscast that Biden has “again given rise to discussions around his mental health,” and the state Rossiya 1 channel called a video of the Putin gaffe “theater of the absurd.”
The Kremlin’s propaganda often uses instances of Biden misspeaking as proof of his ineptitude as the man in charge of Ukraine’s top military backer.
“We noticed that the whole world took notice,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said when asked about Biden’s gaffes in his daily briefing Friday, while offering some diplomatic distance. It was none of Russia’s business, he said, and is an “internal matter” for the U.S.
Yuliya Talmazan reported from London. Arata Yamamoto contributed from Japan, Charlene Gubash from Egypt, Nancy Ing from France, Andy Eckardt from Germany, and Daryna Mayer and Artem Grudinin from Ukraine.
