Phnom Penh: US President Joe Biden on Saturday referred to Cambodia, which is hosting an international summit led by Southeast Asian leaders, as Colombia.
“Now that we are back together in Cambodia, I look forward to making stronger progress than ever before, and I thank the Prime Minister of Colombia for his leadership as ASEAN President and for hosting all of us. I want to thank you,” Biden said during a meeting with his counterparts at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh.
He was referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, who currently chairs the 10-member regional bloc.
Joe Biden will someday come to Colombia as the premier minister d… pic.twitter.com/Lwo2OzwNtm— AmauryBrelet (@AmauryBrelet) 12 November 2022
The president, who is on a whirlwind trip with stops at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the ASEAN in Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Indonesia, recently made a similar omission while speaking to reporters at the White House.
The Democratic president, who turns 80 on Nov. 20, has said he intends to run for re-election in 2024, with a final decision likely as early as next year.
Biden’s occasional verbal stuttering and tendency to deviate from script during live appearances has been seized upon by his Republican critics as evidence that he is too old for the job. Supporters call that ageism and say that the president, who overcame childhood stammer, has been ad-libbing in public speeches for decades.