Biden claims he recently met with former president who died nearly 30 years ago

06 February 2024 , 14:53

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Biden claims he recently met with former president who died nearly 30 years ago

President Biden has told a crowd that he met with Francois Mitterrand, the French president who died nearly 30 years ago, in a slip of the tongue in a speech on Sunday.

Biden was speaking to a gathering in Las Vegas on Sunday ahead of Nevada’s Democratic presidential primary today (Tuesday) when he mis-named the French president in a story he was telling.

The tale, which Biden has shared many time during his stint in office, concerns a meeting he had with French President Emmanuel Macron, not Mitterrand, during a G7 meeting in England a few months after Biden became president.

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President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event at Pearson Community Center in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Sunday (Bloomberg via Getty Images)

"I sat down and I said, ‘America’s back,’" Biden recalled. "And Mitterrand from Germany – I mean from France – looked at me and said…"

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Biden paused momentarily during his speech, before concluding, "Well, how long are you back for?" François Mitterrand was France's president between 1981 and 1995. He died in 1996.

The president was in Nevada to stir up enthusiasm ahead of Tuesday’s Democratic primary in the state. The primary sees Biden facing only a token opposition from author Marianne Williamson and a handful of relatively unknown challengers.

Margaret Thatcher And Francois Mitterrand in Paris, France, on November 18, 1990 (Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

The state traditionally proves difficult to predict in presidential election results, last time Biden won in Nevada by fewer than 3 percentage points.

The president continued his speech, recalling that the “Chancellor of Germany" had asked him how he – and by extension, the U.S. – would respond if, hypothetically, thousands of people stormed Britain’s House of Commons and killed two "bobbies," or British police officers, to stop the election of a Prime Minister.

The actual current French President Emmanuel Macron (Alamy Live News.)

The visit was partially to rouse enthusiasm in voters ahead of the autumn campaign. The transient, working-class population and large Latino, Filipino and Chinese American and Black communities mean that democrats often do well in the state. However there is stiff competition as the state sees a stark rural-urban divide in its politics.

The two most populous counties, which cover the Las Vegas and Reno metro areas are home to 88% of the active registered voters in the state.

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