President Biden on Wednesday mistakenly uttered the name of his predecessor — “President Trump” — chalking it up to a “Freudian slip” even though he was talking about his longtime boss Barack Obama.
Biden meant to refer to Obama, under whom he served for eight years as vice president, when describing his role in auto-industry bailouts in 2009.
“In 2009, during the so-called Great Recession, the president asked me to be in charge of managing that piece — then-President Trump,” Biden misstated during a speech near Allentown, Pa.
“Excuse me, Freudian slip, that was the last president. He caused — anyway, President Obama, when I was vice president. The American auto industry, remember, was on the rocks?”
A Freudian slip refers to someone accidentally revealing their inner feelings when they didn’t intend to do so. It’s unclear, however, why Biden had Trump on his mind.
Biden has rarely uttered Trump’s name following the Capitol riot, during which a mob of the former president’s supporters disrupted certification of Biden’s win. He sometimes calls him “the former guy” to avoid using his name.
When he does mention Trump, it’s rarely positive.
At a NATO conference in June, Biden slammed “President Trump’s phony populism.”
And at a rally last weekend in Virginia for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, Biden said, “I whipped Donald Trump in Virginia, and so will Terry.” The crack was widely seen as a tactical taunt to bait Trump into visiting the Democratic-leaning state.
Biden’s frequent public verbal gaffes and fumbles have led some Republicans to call for him to take a cognition test.