WASHINGTON — President Biden confessed Thursday that “there’s still a lot of work to do” to tame inflation and boost the economy — as he delivered an error-riddled speech that included a false claim that he hadn’t met Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.
“Inflation was 9.1% (in June 2022). Today the United States is very close to 2%. That doesn’t mean our job is done — it’s far from it,” Biden told the Economic Club of Washington.
“Let no one be confused about why I'm here. I'm not here to celebrate a victory. I'm not here to say a job well done. I'm not here to say we don't have more work to do.”
The 81-year-old President said this a day after the Federal Reserve took the decision. interest rates cut by half a percent – The annual inflation rate declined to 2.5% in August.
The retired chairman added, “I haven't spoken to the chairman of the Fed once since I became president.”
However, Biden and Powell actually met in the Oval Office in May 2022 — and the opening remarks from that meeting were covered by the White House press pool.
Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein immediately sought to correct his boss's mistake, insisting that “the president was saying he has not spoken to Chairman Powell about interest rates.”
But that wasn't Biden's only mistake during his speech — which began with an introduction from Economic Club President David Rubenstein, who has lent his multimillion-dollar Nantucket home to Biden He celebrated Thanksgiving Day in every year of his presidency.
Biden also told a crowd of businessmen having lunch in a hotel ballroom near the White House that he was visiting South Korea to discuss computer chip manufacturing with “President Kuo-xi,” but later corrected himself to say “President Hu.”
There has never been a president with that name in South Korea.
It is possible that he may have compared South Korean President Yoon Suk-yol to former Chinese President Hu Jintao, who held the post from 2003 to 2013.
Biden also thanked Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), whom he addressed as “Congressman Carper” — though it is polite to address U.S. politicians by their highest office. Carper left the U.S. House in 1993 to serve as a state governor and then a senator.
The mistakes brought to mind other high-profile examples of Biden being confused, including speaking earlier this year as if the French president was still Francois Mitterrandwho left office in 1995, and it looked as if the German chancellor was still Helmut KohlWho left the post in 1998.
Biden was forced to abandon his campaign for a second term in July as his fellow Democrats grew concerned about his cognitive decline.
