‘What is Biden doing?’: President’s latest bizarre act
US President Joe Biden appeared to get distracted and wander off during an official event, with Italy’s PM forced to pull him back toward the group.
US President Joe Biden appeared to wander off during a skydiving demonstration at the G7 summit in southern Italy on Thursday, with the host nation’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni pressed into action to pull him back toward the group.
As the leaders of the world’s wealthiest democracies applauded the evening parachuting presentation, the 81-year-old US President’s attention visibly wandered away from where the others were looking.
Mr Biden then shuffled a few steps away from his fellow heads of government and appeared to say something to an officer packing a parachute.
At that point, Ms Meloni walked over to Mr Biden — doing so backwards so she was still facing her fellow leaders — and touched the President’s right arm to let him know it was time to rejoin the group.
The rest of the leaders then awkwardly gathered around Mr Biden for a photograph, for which the President slipped on his signature aviator sunglasses.
The odd moment was highlighted by the Republican National Committee’s RNC Research X account, which posted the video along with the all-caps inquiry: “WHAT IS BIDEN DOING?”
“As if Meloni doesn’t have enough on her hands, now she’s stuck playing chaperone to Grandpa Joe,” tweeted National Review senior writer and occasional Post columnist Dan McLaughlin.
“The Prime Minister of another country had to go track him down and stop him from aimlessly wandering off,” added Outkick writer Ian Miller. “What an embarrassment.”
Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi said, “He’s got no idea where he is! Meloni has to step in to babysit him.”
Hours earlier, Mr Biden had a strange introduction to Ms Meloni, appearing to bury his face in her hair as the two embraced upon the President’s arrival at the summit venue in the city of Fasano.
Before departing the stage where Ms Meloni had greeted him, Mr Biden also raised his right hand in an awkward salute before walking away.
Did Giorgia Meloni join the US Military and no one told us?
— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) June 13, 2024
Why did Biden just salute her? 😂 pic.twitter.com/BoW7Q1KTzh
“Did Giorgia Meloni join the US military and no one told us?” asked conservative political strategist Joey Mannarino. “Why did Biden just salute her?”
The trip to the G7 summit is Mr Biden’s second visit to Europe in as many weeks, having visited France last week to take part in commemorations of the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
Many of these people have just lost massively in their elections (Germany, France) or are about to lose (Trudeau, UK, Biden) or are unelected EU bureaucrats.
— Wall Street Silver (@WallStreetSilv) June 13, 2024
This is the international stage of failures.
pic.twitter.com/NmCSRCvbmd
At one point in the June 6 ceremony, Mr Biden awkwardly fumbled for his seat on stage, apparently not realising that his fellow dignitaries, including French President Emmanuel Macron, had remained standing.
Later, the 46th President was ushered away by a handler after shaking hands with Mr Macron, then standing for several minutes as if lost.
Awkward 😬 pic.twitter.com/3KNLco85hj
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 6, 2024
Oh dear pic.twitter.com/uHm8Ca64CX
— Afshin Rattansi (@afshinrattansi) June 7, 2024
The latest Europe trip came days after Mr Biden appeared to freeze while watching “Juneteenth” celebrations at the White House.
Mr Biden was filmed standing still as stone while those around him, including Vice President Kamala Harris, clapped and danced to a concert featuring gospel singer Kirk Franklin on Monday.
Video shows Mr Biden staring blankly and not moving an inch for about 30 seconds before Philonise Floyd — the brother of George Floyd, whose death triggered nationwide riots in 2020 — noticed the president and put his arm around him.
President Biden appeared to freeze during Juneteenth celebrations at the White House, and began slurring his words when speaking to the crowdhttps://t.co/hhDQuQ1toppic.twitter.com/vBAWTQ9IdV
— Sky News (@SkyNews) June 11, 2024
Mr Biden then smiles as Mr Floyd leans in to say something, and they bump fists after exchanging a few words.
“Lights are on but no one’s home,” former President Donald Trump’s campaign posted.
“Who said Biden’s got no rhythm?” quipped Republican Senator Mike Lee from Utah.
Signs of slipping
Mr Biden’s staffers have long confided that the President, who would be 86 years old if he completes a full second term in January 2029, has at points lost his focus in private conversations in addition to his very public errors.
Last week, The Wall Street Journal published a report detailing instances in which the President has demonstrated a lack of clarity in private meetings with staff and members of Congress.
But the White House and Cabinet members have vigorously pushed back against these claims, and defended the President’s mental acuity and ability to perform on the job.
“Congressional Republicans, foreign leaders and nonpartisan national-security experts have made clear in their own words that President Biden is a savvy and effective leader who has a deep record of legislative accomplishment,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
“Now, in 2024, House Republicans are making false claims as a political tactic that flatly contradict previous statements made by themselves and their colleagues.”
Earlier this year, a report from Mr Biden’s own Department of Justice’s special counsel called him an “elderly man with a poor memory” at the end of an investigation into his mishandling of classified documents dating back to his Senate tenure, which ultimately saved him from having charges brought against him by Special Counsel Robert Hur.
Mr Biden has been prone to gaffes going back to when he was Vice President, but the frequency and nature of his verbal missteps in recent years appear to be more significant.
In May, Mr Biden seemed to have a break with reality when he confused the timing of the Covid pandemic by a factor of years when he said, “And when I was Vice President, things were kind of bad during the pandemic, and, what happened was Barack said to me, ‘Go to Detroit — and help fix it.’”
The pandemic happened years after Mr Biden’s time as Vice President.
The President has, on several occasions, referenced dead people as being alive.
In 2022, at a White House event, Mr Biden called out former Representative Jackie Walorski during a speech, “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie?”
Ms Walorski had died in a car crash the previous month.
At a campaign rally in February, Mr Biden told the audience, “Right after I was elected, I went to a G7 meeting in southern England. And I sat down and said, ‘America is back!’ and Mitterand from Germany — I mean France — looked at me and said, ‘How long you back for?’”
Mr Mitterand was president from 1981 to 1995 and died in 1996.
Mr Biden will miss the third and final day of the G7 summit to fly all the way back to the west coast, where he will headline a Hollywood campaign fundraiser hosted by actor George Clooney.
$50 billion for Ukraine
Meanwhile, G7 leaders agreed on Thursday on a new $US50 billion ($75 billion) loan for Ukraine using profits from frozen Russian assets, a move Mr Biden said showed Moscow “we’re not backing down”.
The US President and other G7 leaders agreed at the summit in Italy to use the profits from the interest on the assets to back the loan to provide help this year to Kyiv as it struggles in its third year of war with Russia.
Ms Meloni announced the “political agreement” after the first day of the Puglia talks, saying it was a hard-fought but “fundamental” step.
She invited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to join a special session on the Ukraine war alongside the leaders of Germany, France, Canada, Britain and Japan.
At a joint press conference with the Ukrainian leader afterwards, Mr Biden said the deal emphasised to Russian President Vladimir Putin the long-term commitment of Kyiv’s allies.
With it, the G7 leaders “collectively show Putin he cannot wait us out, he cannot divide us”, he said.
Addressing leaders earlier at the luxury Borgo Egnazia resort, Mr Zelensky said the loan was a “vital step forward in providing sustainable support for Ukraine in winning this war”.
He said it would go towards “both defence and reconstruction”. But he said Ukrainian forces still needed more air-defence systems to help counter attacks by Moscow, which has been pummelling Kyiv’s frontline troops and the country’s power grid.
The EU agreed earlier this year to help Kyiv by using the profits from the interest on Russian central bank assets frozen by Western allies — the majority of them held in the bloc.
But Washington has been pushing for more and faster help through a huge upfront loan.
A senior Biden administration official said the United States was willing to provide up to $US50 billion, but said its contribution could be “significantly less” as it would be a shared initiative.
“We will not be the only lenders. This will be a loan syndicate. We’re going to share the risk, because we have a shared commitment to get this done,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
He would not say how much other G7 countries would contribute, nor did any other leaders on Thursday.
G7 countries, which count the EU as their unofficial eighth member, have been Ukraine’s key military and financial backers since Russia invaded in February 2022.
The G7 and the EU have frozen around 300 billion euros ($486 billion) of Russian assets, much of it frozen by Euroclear, an international deposit organisation based in Belgium.
EU countries say they could generate 2.5 billion to 3 billion euros ($4 billion to 4.9 billion) a year for Kyiv from the profits on the interest.
— with NY Post, Fox News and AFP
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