Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities have been further brought into question after a series of additional serious gaffes over the course of the week, including mixing up the names of several European leaders and claiming to have spoken to leaders who died years prior.
As reported by Axios, Biden on Wednesday confused former German Chancellors Angela Merkel and Helmut Kohl while at a campaign event. Merkel left office in 2021, while Kohl, who left office in 1998, died in 2017.
While speaking to supporters in New York City, Biden told a story that was allegedly from the G7 Summit in 2021, claiming that Kohl asked him about the peaceful protest at the U.S. Capitol on January 6th, falsely describing it as a violent insurrection and trying to compare it to an equivalent British event.
“And then Helmut Kohl turned to me and said, ‘What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up the London Times and learned that 1,000 people had broken down the doors of the British parliament, killed some bobbies on the way in, to deny the prime minister to take office,” Biden recalled. As Kohl had died in 2017, it was Merkel who attended the summit on behalf of Germany in 2021, shortly before she left office.
Several days earlier, Biden mixed up French President Emmanuel Macron with former President Francois Mitterrand; Mitterrand left office in 1995 and died one year later.
On Thursday night, in an unexpected press conference, Biden attempted to offer justifications and excuses for his conduct in the classified documents scandal, after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report on the matter. While Hur declined to press charges, he noted Biden’s advanced age and clear onset of senility, which led to him forgetting when he was Vice President during interviews with the Special Counsel’s office.
In the press conference, Biden made several more glaring mistakes; he claimed that shortly after the war in Israel began on October 7th, “the President of Mexico, Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to allow humanitarian material to get in.” Mexico does not border Israel, and Sisi – presumably a reference to Abdel Fattah el-Sisi – is the President of Egypt.
Later in the same conference, Biden attempted to attack President Trump over remarks about Biden’s late son Beau, whom Biden has repeatedly and falsely claimed died in combat, when in fact he died at home in the United States in 2015 after a battle with brain cancer. Biden then said that, “every day since the day he died,” Biden wears Beau’s rosary, which he “got from Our Lady of…,” before stopping suddenly and then moving on to the next point, failing to remember the name of the church in question.
Biden’s mental decline has continuously proven to be a top concern for voters, who fear that he is not capable of serving a second term in office. His illness has led to much speculation that he could be replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democratic candidate at the Democratic National Convention later this year.