You’re the American president on a visit to former coal plant in Massachusetts. You’re ostensibly there to deliver remarks about climate change. You’re facing criticisms for being out-of-touch, rambling and gaffe-prone. So what do you decide to do? Start suggesting you’ve got cancer in front of the world’s press!
An implausible-sounding scenario perhaps but that’s exactly what bumbling old Biden did yesterday. In a speech delivered yesterday, America’s septuagenarian president mistakenly referred to Glasgow as part of England and appeared to suggest he currently has cancer. Whoops! In a long-winded address on global warming, Biden began to describe the harmful impact of emissions from oil refineries near his childhood home. He concluded by telling broadcasters ‘that’s why I, and so damn many other people I grew up with, have cancer’, forcing a swift White House clarification, in the Commander-in-Chief’s latest public gaffe.
While Biden used the present tense, officials said the president was referring to his past treatment for skin cancer. His deputy press secretary Andrew Bates pointed to his 2021 health exam which noted Biden’s treatment for ‘several, localised non-melanoma skin cancers’, which he had removed before he took office. Still, with Russia on the rampage and China hungry for spoils, not exactly the impression of strength you’d want to give your enemies eh?
It might just be simpler in future to keep a tally of Biden’s days without gaffes, given how rare they now seem to be…
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