World leaders gathered at the historic NATO summit to reinforce one of the international community’s strongest alliances amid a time of global unrest. On the last night, they found themselves excusing President Joe Biden for mistakenly calling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin.”
Biden caught himself immediately Thursday night. “And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he does determination, President Putin … President Putin? We’re going to beat President Putin. President Zelenskyy,” Biden said, self-correcting in real time.
That wasn’t enough to prevent the flub, which once could have been chalked up to yet another Bidenism, from becoming the flub heard around the world.