While appearing at two different campaign fundraisers on February 7, President Joe Biden twice referred to the late chancellor of Germany Helmut Kohl when recounting a conversation he had with world leaders during the Group of Seven summit in Cornwall, England in 2021, NBC News reported.
At two separate New York City fundraisers, Biden said that at his first G7 summit, he proclaimed to the other leaders, “America is back.” Biden said his proclamation prompted French President Emmanuel Macron to ask “for how long.”
According to his telling, Biden said he then asked German Chancellor Helmut Kohl what he would think if he read in the London Times that a thousand people had stormed the British Parliament and killed police officers to attempt to “stop the election of a prime minister.”
The only problem with Biden’s version of the story is that Helmut Kohl was not the Chancellor of Germany in 2021. Angela Merkel was. Additionally, Helmut Kohl, who was chancellor until 1998, died in 2017.
Biden resurrecting Helmut Kohl twice in one day was the second time in less than a week that he confused a current leader with someone long dead.
During a campaign event in Las Vegas just days earlier, Biden recounted the same conversation from the Cornwall G7 summit, only on that occasion, when he recounted telling the leaders that “America is back,” it wasn’t French President Emmanual Macron who asked “for how long” but President François Mitterand “from Germany … I mean from France.”
François Mitterand was president of France from 1981 until 1995. He died in 1996.
During the White House press briefing on February 8, a reporter asked press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about the president repeatedly “speaking to long-dead world leaders.”
Jean Pierre deflected by saying that the president’s message about the January 6 riot and its threat to democracy was what was important about what the president said.
She argued that it was not uncommon for officials to “misspeak” from time to time. As an example, she noted that Speaker Mike Johson inadvertently referred to Iran when he meant Israel.
