President Biden appeared to stumble over the name of his Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin as he crowed about taking heat for putting a “black man” in the crucial position.
The 81-year-old president made the remark while speaking about his record of appointing black people in his administration during a sit-down interview with Black Entertainment Television (BET) on Wednesday.
A clip of the exchange quickly exploded on social media after critics accused a gaffe-prone Biden of forgetting Austin’s name and instead just referring to him as “the black man.” Others maintained that he stumbled over trying to say he had put “a black man” in the role.
“It’s all about treating people with dignity. For example, look at the heat I’m getting because I named a, uh, the secretary of defense, [unintelligible] black man,” Biden said.
“I named Ketanji Brown, I mean, because of the people I’ve named,” he continued, referring to Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether Biden used “a” or “the” to describe Austin as black.
Still, some social media users seized on the president’s remark.
“Let’s see how the Biden dead-enders spin this one,” one user posted on X.
“A POTUS who cannot remember the name of his SecDef — and instead calls him ‘the black man’ — is not mentally equipped to be in charge of 5,000 nuclear weapons,” another griped.
Meanwhile, RNC Research tweeted the clip with a squeamish-faced emoji.
Others, though, argued the viral clip was being misconstrued.
“I think people are misconstruing this clip. If you listen closely, Biden seems to say ‘the secretary of defense, a black man’ not ‘the black man’; and the context is he’s listing his black appointees,” one person tweeted.
The Post reached out to the White House but didn’t hear back immediately.