The verbal stumbles of the almost octogenarian president of the United States, Joe Biden, are not new, but they are receiving more and more attention. The latest occurred in Cambodia, host country of the summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
There, as soon as he began his speech, during the acknowledgments, he referred to Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, as Prime Minister of Colombia.
"Now that we're back together here in Cambodia, I look forward to building even stronger progress than we've already made, and I want to thank the Prime Minister of Colombia for his leadership as president of ASEAN and for welcoming us all," he said. their counterparts in Phnom Penh.
Currently, Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia chairs the 10-member AESAN.
The president, who is on a whirlwind trip with stops at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, ASEAN in Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Indonesia, made a similar mistake while speaking to reporters at the White House recently.
The president, who turns 80 on Nov. 20, said this week that he intends to run for re-election in 2024, with a final decision likely early next year.
Biden's occasional verbal stumbles and tendency to veer off script during live appearances have been seized on by his Republican critics as evidence that he is too old for the job. Supporters call it ageism and say the president, who overcame a childhood stutter, has been improvising in public speeches for decades.
