While on his European adventure on Friday, President Biden again found himself apparently confused about senior officials in his cabinet — namely his Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.
The remarks made during his time in Poland to meet with American service members while accompanied by several other U.S. officials saw him pretty majorly misstating the way things went down in the run-up to Putin's invasion of Ukraine and what's happened since then.
While in Poland, Joe Biden referred to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as "General- Secretary of State." pic.twitter.com/AHG3O3zDXq
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) March 25, 2022
"The reason why, when the General- when the Secretary of State asked me if I'd send another 12,000 troops along to the United States I said yeah- from the United States- we have 100,000 American forces here in Europe. We haven't had that in a long, long time," Biden said.
Well, no.
As can be seen in the video to the left of Biden while he's speaking, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin reacts to Biden's use of incorrect nomenclature. That is who Biden was trying to invoke in his discussion of the request for more troops. And as Biden did correct, those American troops were not requested *to* the United States but *from* the United States.
What's more, the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense don't look alike, don't work in the same place, and don't carry out the same duties.
Obviously Biden is tired — traveling across the Atlantic near a warzone and meeting with many world leaders will take a lot out of any person, not to mention a 79-year-old. But Biden is not any person, he's the President of the United States currently parading around the world stage trying to show American strength in unity with our country's allies against Putin's bloody now month-long invasion of Ukraine.
Maybe name tags should be used for future on-record stops?