The president of the United States, Joe Biden, had a slip and confused Sweden with Switzerland on Thursday during the press conference with which he closed his participation in the NATO summit in Madrid.
Biden was talking about NATO's formal invitation to Sweden and Finland to join the Alliance and he recalled when the President of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, offered to telephone the Prime Minister of Sweden, Magdalena Andersson, but at that moment he confused country.
"I got a call from the leader of Finland saying could he come see me. And he came the next day and said 'Would you support my country joining NATO?' We talked on the phone and he suggested that we call the leader of Switzerland, Switzerland." "My God, I am really looking forward to expanding NATO, from Sweden," she corrected herself.
It's not uncommon for the 79-year-old US president to have such lapses, as he himself has admitted in the past that he is "a goof-up machine".
Those who know Biden maintain that he has had a stutter since childhood that sometimes makes it difficult for him to speak, and they attribute some of the most uncomfortable moments of his long political career to his spontaneous and folksy character.
