The Top 22 Biden Gaffes of the 2020 Campaign... So Far

Then Vice President Joe Biden speaks at a campaign event for Hillary Clinton on Sept. 1, 2016, in Cleveland. (AP Photo/David Dermer)

Back in August I compiled 35 Obama gaffes to make Joe Biden feel better about himself. Well, Biden’s still been producing memorable gaffes, so it seems like a good time to compile the best (or perhaps worst) of them from the campaign trail. I should note, however, that there are multiple examples of Biden not knowing which state he is in. So, in order to keep this list relatively short, all instances of his mistaking where he is are not included.

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22. Joe thinks he’s still vice president

In Iowa earlier this month, Joe Biden spoke of housing policy as though he was still vice president and Barack Obama was president.

21. Stop & Shop, not ShopRite

Back in September, Biden recalled how he gave his support to unions striking in Boston. It was a Stop & Shop strike, but Biden called it a ShopRite strike.

20. Calling Julián Castro “Cisneros”

Last month, Biden mistakenly referred to his primary opponent Julián Castro, the former HUD Secretary under Obama, as “Cisneros,” most likely a reference to Henry Cisneros, who served as HUD Secretary under Bill Clinton.

19. Preaching to the choir

Joe Biden made a really poor attempt at an analogy/metaphor/joke during the CNN climate town hall in September. “You can’t, in fact, preach to the choir if you can’t sing.” Wut?

18. Laughing about putting tens of thousands of blacks in prison

This is so cringeworthy. Yikes.

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17. The Paris Peace Accord

Remember when Joe Biden said, “I’m going to make sure that we rejoin the Paris Peace Accord on day one.” Biden apparently forgot that the Paris Peace Accord was a treaty to end the Vietnam War that was signed during his first year in the Senate.

16. Who won North Carolina in 2012?

Biden mistakenly claimed that he and Barack won North Carolina twice, when they only won the state in 2008:

15. Biden doesn’t even know where he went to college

Biden went to University of Delaware and Syracuse University College of Law (where he was accused of plagiarism), but not a HBCU, Delaware State, like he claimed here:

14. The Kent State forty

No one fancies Joe Biden to be a historian, but how can he not know that his claim that over forty students were shot during a 1970 anti-Vietnam War protest at Kent State was wrong—it was actually four students killed and nine injured.

13. Assassinations in the wrong decade

Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. were both assassinated in 1968. But, Joe Biden remembers them being “assassinated in the ‘70s—late 70s.”

12. Confusing Iraq and Syria

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Biden’s strong point has never been foreign policy, but getting these two countries wrong seems concerning.

11. Go to Joe 30330

I remember watching the July debate and cringing at this moment.

10. Expodentially

Donald Trump gets a lot of flak for typos in his tweets, but Biden makes up words that don’t exist.

9. Biden’s confused moment in the October debate

Biden flip-flopped on a position on a key tax issue in a matter of seconds during the October debate. “We have to start rewarding work, not just wealth. I would eliminate the capital gains tax. I would— I would raise the capital gains tax to the highest rate of 39.5 percent, I would double it,” Biden said. But, his gaffe machine didn’t turn off there.  Moments later he said, “Why in God’s name should someone who’s clipping coupons in the stock market… pay a lower tax rate than someone who is a school teacher and a firefighter.”

8. Clipping coupons in the stock market?

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7. 720 million women

How do you know a politician is pulling bogus numbers out of thin air to promote his or her policies? When you claim your policy will put more people to work than the current population is.

6. When he said his healthcare plan is “not quality” and will “increase premiums”

While this can be written off as a moment of truth, it’s likely that Biden didn’t mean to admit this.

5. Who’s Boris Johnson?

It’s not to remember every world leader, but how does someone running for president not know who Boris Johnson is?

4. The phony war story

Back in August, Joe Biden told a moving story about pinning a Silver Star on an elderly Navy captain in Afghanistan. It was a new iteration of a story he’s told many times that just happens to be completely not true. Rather than admit the error, when he was called out on it, he defended the lie by saying the “central point” was “correct.”

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Okay.

3. Truth over facts

This is one of my favorites. At a campaign stop in Iowa back in August, he told supporters “we choose truth over facts,” in reference to the Democratic Party.

2. White kids

While campaigning in Iowa over the summer, Joe Biden conflated “poor kids” with minorities by saying  they are “just as bright and talented” as “white kids.” He did realize the gaffe somewhat quickly though.

1. Russian Interference

Crazy Uncle Joe must not have gotten the memo when he claimed in an interview on CNN that Russian interference in our elections didn’t occur on his and Obama’s watch. “Look at what’s happening with Putin. While he is trying to undo our elections, he is undoing elections in Europe. Look at what’s happening in Hungary; look what’s happening in Poland; look what’s happened to Moldova. Look at what’s happening. You think that would have happened under my watch or Barack’s watch?” he asked. “You can’t answer that but I promise you it wouldn’t have and it didn’t,” Biden added.

As PJ Media’s Brian Min previously noted, it did happen on their watch. In fact, a lot of time and money was spent under the assumption that not only did it happen, but that Trump colluded with Russia to interfere with our elections. While the collusion stuff was completely bogus, it’s agreed on by our intelligence agencies that Russia did try to interfere with our elections, and the Obama administration did little to nothing to stop it.

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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis

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