PHNOM PENH (Reuters) – US President Joe Biden on Saturday referred to Cambodia, which is hosting an international summit led by Southeast Asian leaders, as Colombia.
“Now that we are back together here in Cambodia, I look forward to stronger progress than we have already made, and I would like to thank the Prime Minister of Colombia for his leadership as ASEAN President and for hosting us all,” Biden said during his meeting with his ASEAN counterparts in Phnom Penh.
He was referring to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who currently heads the 10-member regional bloc.
The president, who is making a brisk trip with stops at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Phnom Penh and the G-20 summit in Indonesia, made a similar gaffe while speaking to reporters at the White House recently.
The Democratic president, who will turn 80 on November 20, said this week that he intends to run for re-election in 2024, with a final decision likely early next year.
His Republican critics have used Biden’s occasional verbal stumbles and his tendency to veer off script during on-air as evidence that he’s too old for the job. Supporters call this anti-aging discrimination and say the president, who has overcome a childhood stutter, has been practicing curses in public speeches for decades.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose and Jiraporn Kohkan) Writing by Kanupriya Kapoor; Editing by Christina Fincher
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