On the last day of his tour of the Middle East, President Joe Biden made another slip-up, this time calling soldiers who risked their lives in decades-long war selfish.
Biden’s speeches have become synonymous with errors and gaffes, with the one he made in Saudi Arabia including a particularly grueling mistake that saw the President thanking America’s soldiers for their “selfishness.”
“For the first time since 9/11, an American President is visiting this region without American troops being engaged in combat — in a combat mission in the region,” he continued, “We’ll always honor the bravery and selfishness — selflessness — of the, and sacrifices of the Americans who served, including my son, Maj. Beau Biden, who was stationed in Iraq for a year.”
As Biden made the slip-up, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, standing behind Biden during his speech, became visibly uncomfortable.
But that wasn’t the only gaffe Biden made on his tour of the Middle East. Two days earlier, in Israel, Biden pledged to keep the “honor of the Holocaust” alive before quickly correcting his mistake to the “horror of the Holocaust.”
The arrival speech mistake was included in the official transcripts but was edited to show what Biden was supposed to say.
“I will once more return to the hallowed ground of Yad Sh — Vashem to honor the six million Jewish lives that were stolen in a genocide and continue — which we must do every, every day — continue to bear witness, to keep alive the truth and honor [horror] of the Holocaust — horror of the Holocaust, honor those we lost so that we never, ever forget that lesson,” the transcript read.
The gaffes are particularly notable given they come days after Biden included instructions like, “End of quote. Repeat the line,” in a speech when reading the teleprompter.
