Photo courtesy of Carolyn Kraster/AP
President Joe Biden mistakenly referred to former First Lady Michelle Obama as the United States Vice President during a speech on Saturday.
Biden, 79, made the statement after commissioning the USS Deleware, a public ceremony delayed for more than two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the New York Post reported.
“I’m deeply proud of the work she is doing as First Lady with Joining Forces initiative she started with Michelle Obama when she was vice president and now carries on.”
The White House caught the president’s error and updated the statement on the website.
“And I’m deeply proud of the work she is doing as First Lady with Joining Forces initiative she started with Michelle Obama when she [I] was Vice President and now carries on,” the White House’s official transcript of the remarks said.
In his speech, Biden praised his wife, First Lady Jill Biden, and referred to her as the “original Vice President,” a role he served for eight years during the Obama administration. The first lady had years of experience helping military families while overseeing the USS Deleware’s development since becoming a sponsor in 2018.
“Jill has watched over the progress of the USS Delaware for years,” Biden said in his speech.
“The daughter of a Navy signalman during World War Two, the mother of a member of the Delaware National Guard, the grandmother of children who experienced having their father deployed away from home for a year at a time. She always holds our military and their families in her heart. And that is not hyperbole; that’s real,” he added.
Jill Biden uttered the traditional words that finalized the Delaware-based ship as a fighting vessel.
“Man our ship and bring her to life,” she ordered the crew.
“Aye aye, ma’am,” they responded.
“As the commander in chief, I believe it is our sacred obligation as a nation to prepare and equip those troops that we send into harm’s way and to care for them and their families when they return home,” Biden asserted.
Watch the full speech below.