President Joe Biden confused former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump in a Tuesday speech, blaming his gaffe on a “Freudian slip.”
“Back in 2009, during the so-called Great Recession, the president asked me to be in charge of managing that piece, then-President Trump,” Biden said. “Excuse me, Freudian slip, that was the last president. He caused the … anyway, President Obama when I was vice president.”
The president gave the speech at a Mack Truck assembly plant in Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania. He announced his plan to update the 1933 Buy American Act, which currently requires federal agencies to buy a minimum of 55% of American products. The Biden administration said they intend to increase the percentage to 65% by 2024 and 75% by the end of the decade.
Biden rapidly received backlash on social media for the mix-up. Abigail Marone, press secretary for Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, mocked the president’s slip-up on social media.
“I feel like Joe Biden might not know what a ‘Freudian slip’ is,” she tweeted. (RELATED: A Visibly Confused, Tired-Looking Joe Biden Mixes Up Libya, Syria Three Times In Speech On Russia)
McClatchy reporter Bryan Lowry said the president’s excuse means he has “subconscious feelings” about Obama.
“Biden just confused Trump and Obama,” he tweeted. “He called it a Freudian slip, which would mean he has some subconscious feelings about his former boss.”