After saying that he has cancer, the White House press office were forced to quickly clarify that President Biden was actually referring to the skin cancer he had years ago.
During the president’s latest public gaffes on Wednesday, Biden also mistakenly referred to Glasgow as part of England.
Biden’s made his remarks during a speech about global warming in which he described emissions from oil refineries near his childhood home in Claymont, Delaware.
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He said: “That’s why I and so damn many other people I grew up with have cancer and why for the longest time Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation”
Although, Biden used the present tense, White House officials said the president was referring to his past treatment for skin cancer.
MSN reports: Mr Biden’s deputy press secretary Andrew Bates pointed to his 2021 health exam which noted his treatment for “several, localised non-melanoma skin cancers”, which he had removed before he took office.
However, Mr Biden’s comments were widely mocked by Republicans who have seized on each of the 79-year-old’s regular verbal missteps as evidence of his ailing mental acuity.
Other critics pointed out that Mr Biden’s comments were a significant departure from the focus of his speech at a former coal plant in Massachusetts.
While announcing steps he is taking to address climate change, Mr Biden began to describe the harmful impact of emissions from oil refineries near his childhood home.
“You had to put on your windshield wipers to get, literally, the oil slick off the window,” he said.
“That’s why I, and so damn many other people I grew up with, have cancer and why for the longest time Delaware had the highest cancer rate in the nation.”
In his White House health summary, Mr Biden’s history of skin cancer is attributed to spending a “good deal of time in the sun in his youth”, rather than the result of exposure to fossil fuels.
It was not the only blunder during Mr Biden’s speech, in which he mistakenly referred to Glasgow as part of England as he heralded American leadership on climate change during the COP26 climate summit in the Scottish city last year.
“I was able to bring more world leaders together. We got 100 nations together to agree at the major conference in Glasgow, England – I mean Scotland – to change the emissions policy. We’ve made real progress,” Mr Biden said.
Despite Mr Biden’s immediate correction, the error was widely mocked by commentators on social media.
