Biden mixes up Cambodia and Colombia in latest high-profile gaffe

US

Joe Biden referred to Cambodia, which is hosting an international summit led by Southeast Asian leaders, as Colombia in another high-profile slip-up.

“Now that we’re back together here in Cambodia, I look forward to building even stronger progress than we’ve already made, and I want to thank the prime minister of Colombia for his leadership as ASEAN chair and for hosting all of us,” he said.

He was referring to Prime Minister Hun Sen of Cambodia, who is currently chairing the 10-member regional bloc.

President Biden is on a whirlwind trip with stops at the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, ASEAN in Phnom Penh and the G20 summit in Indonesia.

It comes just weeks after he made a blunder during a speech when he asked if a deceased congresswoman was in the audience.

He made the gaffe at a conference on hunger, nutrition and health after apparently forgetting that Jackie Walorski, the former Republican representative for the state of Indiana, died in a car crash in August.

The 79-year-old looked around the room in Washington on 28 September and said: “Jackie, are you here? Where’s Jackie? She must not be here.”