Biden Commits Gaffe During Summit in Asia

U.S. President Joe Biden (L) and Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen speak as they attend the East Asia Summit Gala dinner in Phnom Penh, on Nov. 12, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

U.S. President Joe Biden named the wrong country when he was thanking a top official during a summit in Asia on Nov. 12.

“Now that we’re back together here in Cambodia, I look forward to building even stronger progress than we’ve already made, and I want to thank the Prime Minister of Colombia for his leadership as ASEAN chair and for hosting all of us,” Biden said.

Biden was talking about Hun Sen, the prime minister of Cambodia and chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

Colombia is in South America.

No representatives of Colombia were at the ASEAN event, which was taking place in Phnom Penh.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The White House corrected the president’s error in the official transcript of Biden’s remarks by crossing out Colombia and inserting Cambodia.

Biden was stopping at ASEAN after taking part in the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Egypt. After ASEAN, he was scheduled to attend a Group of Twenty summit in Indonesia.

Biden confused Colombia and Cambodia before as he left the White House in Washington to depart for the trip.

“I’m heading down to—first of all, going to Cairo for the environmental effort, then heading over to Colombia and then—I mean, Cambodia. I was thinking—I’m thinking the Western Hemisphere. And then off to Indonesia. So there will be a lot to talk about,” he said at the time.

Biden, 80, is the oldest president in United States history. He regularly misstates facts about people and places as he appears in public, including wondering where a deceased congresswoman was during an event in September.

In recent weeks, Biden has made false claims about gasoline prices, the number of states in America, where his son died, his administration’s debt forgiveness plan, and the man who invented insulin.

Some Republicans have called on Biden to take a cognitive test.

Biden said in October that questions about his age are “totally legitimate” as the 2024 season kicks off.

“I am in good health. Everything physically about me is still functioning well, and mentally, too … But I understand people want to ask that question,” he said on MSNBC.

During a press conference on Wednesday, Biden said he may not run for a second term.

“My intention is that I run again. But I’m a great respecter of fate. And this is, ultimately, a family decision,” he said, adding that he would consult his family around the holidays and make a formal announcement in 2023.