Joe Biden’s Top 3 Gaffes and Awkward Moments in Ireland: ‘Go Lick the World’

C-SPAN
Wendell Husebø

President Joe Biden committed a number of gaffes and awkward moments this week as he toured Ireland with his family members.

As a self-proclaimed “gaffe machine,” Biden continued his streak of errors during three separate events, causing social media to erupt.

Below are the top three gaffes:

1.) Biden mislabels his office location 

Speaking Wednesday at Ulster University, Northern Ireland’s regional university, Biden claimed his Oval Office was in the United States Capitol instead of the White House, which he properly identified later in his remarks.

“As you walk into my office in the Oval Office in the United States Capitol — guess what, you know who founded and designed and built the White House? An Irishman. Not a joke,” Biden said.

2.) Biden gives motivational advice 

During a state dinner in Ireland on Thursday, Biden told the audience to go “lick the world” in reference to the cooperation between the United States and Ireland.

The White House / Facebook
3.) Biden raises political sensitivities

At the end of a rambling speech in a pub Wednesday, Biden confused New Zealand’s fierce All Blacks rugby team with the “Black and Tans” British security forces unit.

The “Black and Tans” fought the Irish Republican Army nearly 100 years ago.

Biden, standing next to star rugby player Rob Kearney, tried to compliment Kearney’s successful career when Ireland’s rugby team defeated the “All Blacks” for the first time in 111 years.
“He’s a hell of a rugby player, and he beat the hell out of the Black and Tans,” Biden gaffed.

…Notable awkward moments

Biden’s trip also had a number of unusual moments. Those included multiple commands of telling people, “Don’t jump,” and claiming he will never return to the United States.

He also told Irish officials the most existential threat to the world was climate change. “The single existential threat to the world is climate change,” he said.

“We don’t have a lot of time and that’s a fact,” he added.

Biden also renewed claims he had “traveled 17,000 miles with” Chinese President Xi Jinping. According to the Washington Post, “a White House official conceded that Biden’s line of ‘traveling with’ Xi is not accurate.”

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.

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