Biden's anecdote about recent conversation with long-dead Frenchman feeds concern about his decrepitude

President Joe Biden managed to get a country, a name, and an era wrong all in one anecdote during a campaign event Sunday in Las Vegas, renewing concerns about his glaring decrepitude.

Speaking to a crowd of hospitality workers at the Pearson Community Center, Biden attempted to bring a rambling speech to a close with a denunciation of "MAGA Republicans," the suggestion that a failure to choose him in the general election might mean democracy's demise, and a personal anecdote.

"Look, Trump and his MAGA friends are dividing us, not uniting us; dragging us back to the past, not leading us to the future," said the 81-year-old Democrat.

After framing Republicans as the remaining obstacle to a brave new world, Biden dragged his audience back to an uncertain past, noting, "You know, right, right, right after I was elected, I went to what they call a G7 meeting. All the NATO leaders. And it was in — it was in the south of England. And I sat down and I said, 'America is back.'"

The 47th G7 Summit in Cornwall, England, was held just months before Biden's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"And Mitterrand, from Germany — I mean, from France, looked at me and said — said, 'You know, what — why — how long you back for?'" continued Biden, prompting nervous laughter from the audience.

"And I looked at him, and the — and the chancellor of Germany said, 'What would you say, Mr. President, if you picked up the paper tomorrow in the London Times, and London Times said, 'A thousand people break through the House of Commons, break down the doors, two bobbies are killed in order to stop the election of the prime minister. What would you say?'" said Biden.

Biden added, "And I never thought about it from that perspective. What would we say that happened in another democracy around the world? Well, the whole world watched — the whole world watched. And what's going on?"

The major issue with Biden's story was not that he misstated, corrected, then once again misstated François Mitterrand's nationality. The issue is that Mitterrand has been dead for 28 years.

Mitterrand was president of France, not the chancellor of Germany, from 1981 to 1995. He died on Jan. 8, 1996.

The White House indicated in the transcript for Biden's speech that by "Mitterrand," the geriatric president actually meant to say "Macron," as in Emmanuel Macron, the current president of France.

Macron's is hardly the first name Biden has confused in recent years.

Prior to his election in 2020, Biden mistook his sister for his wife. On multiple occasions since, he has confused the names of various nations. In one instance last year, he confused Ukraine and Iraq twice in 24 hours.

Even when the right name is on his tongue, Biden often has trouble getting it out.

Within minutes of announcing a $40 billion investment in the Pacific Islands Infrastructure Initiative, which in fact was a $40 million dollar investment, Biden attempted in a September speech to tell the crowd what his team calls the initiative.

"We call it the PG, PI — anyway," said Biden, giving up on the remaining letters in the acronym. "It doesn't matter what we call it, but that's what it is."

Mitterrand is also not the first dead person Biden has apparently spoken to.

One month after eulogizing Indiana Rep. Jackie Walorski, who died in 2022, Biden called out to her during a speech in Washington, saying, "Representative Jackie — are you here? Where's Jackie? — I think she was going to be here."

Biden has also repeatedly told the apocryphal story of his conversation with an Amtrak conductor named Angelo Negri — a conversation that apparently took place a year after Negri died and over 20 years after the conductor's retirement.

Following Biden's latest blunder in Vegas, critics online questioned the president's remaining faculties.

Graham Allen of the "Dear America" podcast wrote, "This is not a healthy sign."

Another user on X wrote, "This is what perfectly healthy people do everybody, nothing to see here!"

The latest NBC News poll shows that 76% of voters, including a great many Democrats, are deeply concerned over Biden's age. After all, in addition to flubbing names, repeating himself, tripping over nothing, and relying on cue cards for instructions on how to execute basic functions, he continues to pad his record of days spent on vacation.

Biden, whose disapproval rating cracked 60% late last month, would be 86 at the end of his second term if granted one by voters.

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