"Biden has no clue what he ate for lunch": POTUS’ gaffe compared to Vladimir Putin talking about geopolitical history during Carlson’s interview

Joe Biden mistakenly confusing the leaders of Mexico and Egypt in a press conference on February 8 raised concerns about the aging President's recall and memory. The gaffe, which ironically happened just minutes after Biden forcefully pushed back against reports that concluded him as “a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, is the latest in the line of mixups from the POTUS in just one week.

In the clip that went viral on social media, the US President, aged 81, mistakenly referred to Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the “president of Mexico” while fielding a question about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

“I think as you know initially, the president of Mexico, El-Sisi, did not want to open up the gate to humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him. I convinced him to open the gate,” he said.

Netizens quickly took to social media to compare this clip to a recent two-hour interview of Vladimir Putin with American reporter Tucker Carlson, which saw the Russian president delve into a 30-minute history lesson about Eastern European geopolitical affairs without any notes on him.

According to The Independent, the two-hour seven-minute-long interview is the first time Putin has sat down with a Western media figure since the Ukraine invasion in February 2022. The interview, which was filmed in Moscow on February 6 and was released in full on X on Thursday, February 7, saw Putin talk about Russia's history and its relationship with Ukraine in long-winded detail.

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Biden's latest mixup mocked in the light of Putin's unscripted diatribe about Russian history

With Putin's interview and Biden's press conference airing on the same day, netizens could not help but compare the POTUS' series of slip-ups to the Russian president's sharp, clear-cut interview given with no notes on him.

Some claimed Putin to be "healthier, more intelligent, and craftier" than the POTUS. Here are some of their reactions on X:

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A Special Counsel Report alleges that Biden's memory is "fuzzy"

According to AP News, a Special Counsel alleged that due to his age, the President's memory was “hazy,” “fuzzy,” “faulty,” “poor” and has “significant limitations.” The report noted that Biden couldn't recall significant milestones of his life, including when he became VP or when his son Beau died.

In the Thursday press conference from the White House, the President declared that his memory was "fine."

“My memory’s fine. Take a look at what I’ve done since I became president… how did that happen? I guess I just forgot what was going on,” Biden quipped sarcastically.

But immediately after this, he confused the leaders of Mexico and Egypt, which once again sparked debates about his competency as President. This is his third slip-up just this week, after name-dropping the wrong person on two separate events while recounting the same story on February 4 and February 7.

Republicans, who otherwise find it difficult to outperform him in the polls, have seized upon his gaffes as an opportunity to attack him. Senior strategist for the Trump campaign Chris LaCivita referred to Biden as "weak and sad" after the video from the news conference on Thursday went viral.

According to The Hill, an NBC News poll published this week found that 76 percent of voters, including 54 percent of Democrats, had varying concerns on whether the current President had “the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term.”