Miranda Devine: Joe Biden’s gaffes are no laughing matter

US President Joe Biden has prepared for a meeting with Vladimir Putin by producing a plethora of gaffes at the G7 summit, writes Miranda Devine.

Joe Biden had an excellent adventure at the G7. It’s just that no one had any idea what he was on about. Him least of all.

Dr Jill told us that he had been “studying for weeks” to prepare for the momentous event. “Joe loves foreign policy,” she told reporters while modelling a black jacket that had the word “LOVE” emblazoned on the rear. “This is his forte.”

Anyone who has seen Hunter Biden’s laptop knows exactly what she is talking about.

We can only imagine what the other world leaders really thought of Biden, 78, as he wandered around looking like a lost soul in Cornwall.

Dr Jill, 68, was having a ball, so much so that, in all the conviviality, she sometimes forgot about her husband who also was forgetting himself.

US First Lady Jill Biden, wearing a jacket emblazoned with the words 'love'. Picture: AFP

“I keep forgetting I’m president,” he told a group of US military personnel when he first arrived in the UK, just before he referred to the RAF as the RFA.

“Joe, pay attention,” Dr Jill chided him.

Ouch. She’s not even hiding the schoolmarm bossiness any more. On Air Force One on the way over the Atlantic, while Joe presumably was having a little nap, Dr Jill sneaked behind his presidential flight desk and snapped a selfie of herself, pen in hand, ring binders at the ready, peering through her spectacles with a studious expression.

Then she inadvisably tweeted it with the caption: “Prepping for the G7.” Lol.

The message is unmistakeable. Don’t worry if Joe seems increasingly dotty. Jill’s in charge.

When he wasn’t mixing up Syria and Libya, calling climate change a “sexessential” threat, or “harassing the full potential” of democracy, Biden kept saying “America is back”, often apropos of nothing.

Sometimes he would add a thumbs up, or a little fist pump, humbly inviting other world leaders to tell him how much better he is than Donald Trump.

That was the entire point of this unofficial slogan for his European tour to the G7 and NATO: Biden was fishing for compliments.

US President Joe Biden guides French President Emmanuel Macron at the G7 summit in Cornwall. Picture: AFP

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose nickname in France is “Choupinet”, meaning “poppet”, was gratifyingly solicitous with Biden. He whispered sweet nothings in his ear and guided the older man with a firm hand on his back whenever he seemed about to walk off in the wrong direction.

Macron does have experience with being respectful with the elderly as his wife, Brigitte, is 68 and he a mere garcon of 43.

He was the first world leader lucky enough to get a one-on-one with Biden — a “bi-lat”, in foreign affairs-speak. This consisted of the two men sitting in suits and ties on wicker chairs by the sea, making small talk for the TV cameras.

“I think it’s great to have a US President part of the club and very willing to co-operate,” said Macron – or “Macohn” as Biden called him.

“The United States, I’ve said before, we’re back. The US is back,” Biden said, a little disappointed that Macron hadn’t been more effusive in his praise.

Macron got the first “bi lat” with Biden. The French president said America is “definitely” back. Picture: AFP

A cheeky reporter called out: “Have you convinced allies that America is back?”

Biden pointed at Macron undiplomatically. “Ask him”.

“Ahem,” said Macron, squirming a little in his seat. “Yeah definitely”. What else could he say?

This was the story the news anchors back home in America were dying for, the first diss of Trump by a G7 leader.

They ran chyrons across the bottom of their TV coverage which said: “The US is back”.

Their viewers all know that is code for “Trump sucks”, which was the fuel that kept the networks going for four years. Now that Trump is gone and their ratings are in free fall, they are like spurned lovers, unable to stop obsessing over the ex.

In video cameos on C-Span, Biden was seen trailing listlessly behind other world leaders as they traipsed between photo opportunities under gloomy skies.

The tweeting bird soundtrack was quite apt, although it could have done with a hint of Curb Your Enthusiasm for the full effect of bumbling inconsequentiality.

The G7 really was the B team.

World leaders pose for the official ‘family photo’ at the G7 summit. Picture: Getty

The tone lifted slightly with the late arrival of Australia’s Scott Morrison, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa and South Korea’s Moon Jae-in as special guest extras of G7 host, British PM Boris Johnson, (who shamefully revealed himself as a born again wokester, but that’s another story).

Biden, desperate to prove he’s not racist, fawned embarrassingly over Ramaphosa, the only black man at the summit. At one point, as Johnson introduced the newcomers to the roundtable, “President Ramaphosa, President Moon”, Biden interrupted, wrongly thinking Johnson had forgotten the South African president, even though he literally had just said his name.

“And the president of South Africa,” Biden prompted, and then did a bizarre double fist pump at Ramaphosa across the table, as if to say, “I’ve got your back, bro, unlike these white supremacists”.

Johnson paused, looked pained and said: “And the president of South Africa, as, as, as I said earlier on.”

“Oh, you did,” said Biden, confused.

“I did, I certainly did”, replied Johnson, reaching his arm out in a blocking motion toward Biden as the table erupted in laughter.

“You get two mentions Cyril,” someone quipped amid the mirth.

But it’s no laughing matter that the leader of the free world is in such feeble form on the world stage, especially as he heads to a meeting in Geneva on Wednesday with Russia’s strongman Vladimir Putin, whose very name seems to make Biden’s brain freeze.

Joe Biden has been given some wry tips from his predecessor ahead of a meeting with Vladimir Putin. Picture: AFP

Trump, frustrated on the sidelines in Trump Tower in New York, and banned from Twitter and Facebook, fired off a few pungent emails to his mailing list during the European summits.

“If I were a leader of these countries, I too would like Biden far better than President Trump. They will now get very rich off the United States just like they have in the past until a change is made. I am for AMERICA FIRST!”

He also had a wry tip for Biden in his meeting with Putin: “Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin — don’t fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!”

In Brussels for NATO chinwags, Biden was three hours late for a press conference. This time he brought teleprompters, but called on reporters in order from a prearranged list his handlers had prepared, along with cue cards for each question.

He still managed to get in a humble-brag on his favourite topic: “An awful lot of people thought that my showing up at the G7 would not produce any kind of enthusiasm about American leadership … I would suggest that it didn’t turn out that way”.

In the end, there was some substance out of the G7: tens of billions of dollars for climate change, challenging China’s Belt and Road policies and sending Covid vaccines to poor countries.

Biden also told us the G7 had vowed to root out corruption. He said shell companies and money laundering “constitute a threat to our security”.

Quick. Somebody tell Hunter.

Miranda Devine is in New York for 18 months to cover current affairs for The Daily Telegraph