Topline
Former President Donald Trump appeared to confuse former President Barack Obama with President Joe Biden during a rally Saturday night, the latest in a series of gaffes from Trump as the age and mental well-being of both top presidential candidates remains a concern for voters.
During a campaign rally Saturday night, Trump appeared to mix-up Obama with Biden, again.
Key Facts
The gaffe came when Trump was discussing Vladimir Putin and said the Russian president “has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word.”
Video of the event shows the crowd going silent after Trump’s reference to Obama, before Trump then names Biden, and calls him “a fool.”
In at least seven other instances, Trump has seemed to confuse Obama with Biden.
Last week, when referencing Putin at the Conservative Political Action Conference Trump made another Putin-related gaffe, saying he agreed with the Russian President that he’d rather see Biden as president.
Tangent
Over the course of just several months last fall, Trump seemed to confuse Biden with Obama seven different times. In a November speech, recounting a speech by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, during an Oct. 1 rally in Iowa, twice on Oct. 11 during a Fox News Radio interview, and then three more times on Sept. 15, during a speech to faith leaders in Washington. Trump’s near-obsession with Obama tracks back many years, long before he ran for president, when he was spreading false information about Obama’s birth country.
Key Background
Saturday’s mistake is not the first from the 77-year-old former president. Last week, he appeared to refer to his wife Melania Trump as “Mercedes” during his CPAC remarks. The week before that he told Michigan voters to vote on the “very important date” of November 27, though the state’s primary election was on February 27. Trump has tried to defend himself by saying he “sarcastically” interchanges Obama and Biden “as an indication that others may actually be having a very big influence in running our Country.” Biden, 81, has had a run of bad public-speaking mishaps amid increased scrutiny. The Justice Department’s report, released last month by Special Counsel Robert Hur, found Biden “willfully” retained classified materials while a private citizen, but chose not to bring criminal charges, saying as Biden can appear as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Then, in defending himself the day of the report, Biden made yet another mistake, erroneously calling Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi the “president of Mexico.”
Big Number
42%. That's the percentage of people who say they at least somewhat agree Trump is too old to be an effective president, according to a new New York Times/Siena College poll out Sunday. Some 73% said the same about Biden.
Further Reading
