After a week of foreign visits, an exhausted President Biden appeared flustered and confused during his joint press conference with Finnish President Sauli Niinistö in Helsinki last Thursday before returning home to the States, The New York Post reported.
In addition to confusing Iceland with Ireland, the 80-year-old Biden also grew flustered with a Finnish reporter, angrily telling her she doesn’t know if she will make it home.
During the press conference, reporter Iida Tikka of Finland’s YLE public broadcasting service noted that some American politicians oppose the US’s membership in NATO and asked the president what actions he could take to assure Finland that the United States will “remain a reliable NATO partner for decades to come.”
The president told Tikka that he “absolutely” guarantees it, noting that there is “overwhelming support” for the alliance in Congress and among the American public.
Despite “absolutely” guaranteeing it, Biden added that nobody can “guarantee the future,” but it is “the best bet anyone could make.”
In response to Biden’s instant walk-back, Tikka then asked President Niinistö if he is concerned that the “political instability” in the United States might “cause issues” for NATO in the future.
A huffy Biden interrupted, telling Tikka that he didn’t say that the US didn’t guarantee it. He said he “couldn’t guarantee the future.” To drive home his point, Biden told Tikka that she couldn’t say whether she will “be able to go home tonight,” adding that nobody “can be sure what they’re gonna do.”
The president explained that he was as certain as it is possible to be when dealing with US foreign policy that the US will “stay connected to NATO.”
Earlier in the press conference, Biden inadvertently referred to Iceland Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir as a “daughter of Ireland.” However, he quickly caught his mistake and claimed that he was “thinking of home.”
Biden has never lived in Ireland. His ancestors emigrated to the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.
