President Joe Biden bluntly said he’s ‘doing 9/11’ tomorrow in a head-scratching comment to reporters who asked his plans ahead of the debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
The gaffe-prone 81-year-old was heading to Marine One on the White House lawn when he made the comments just one day before the 23rd anniversary of the terror attacks.
‘I’m going up to my granddaughter’s birthday in New York,’ Biden began. ‘Then we’re gonna watch the debate, then tomorrow I’m doing 9/11.’
The president’s remark concerning the September 11, 2001 attacks on America caused social media users to express shock and amusement at his poor choice of wording.
President Biden speaks to the press before he departs from the White House for New York in Washington DC on September 10, 2024
On social media platform X, one person commented: ‘Biden’s slip-ups are endless. You’d think someone would double-check his scripts by now.’
Another posted: ‘Yup… He done’, while someone added: ‘Gotta be honest until I saw that ‘tomorrow I’m doing 9/11′ clip just now I kind of forget Joe Biden was even alive.’
A Trump campaign associated X account shared the clip, saying: ‘This is the humiliating cognitive decline Kamala Harris COVERED UP.’
It is the latest in a long line of blunders for the commander in chief who stepped down from his reelection race after a disastrous debate performance against Trump.
Just days before his shock announcement, he had even referred to Vice President Harris as Donald Trump.
Other mishaps have included him bumping into flagpoles, falling off bicycles, and calling people by the wrong name.
Biden is set to mark the anniversary of the attacks in New York City before also visiting the Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, memorials.
Conspirators from al-Qaida seized control of airplanes and hit New York’s World Trade Center and the Pentagon near Washington.
Hijacked United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center and explodes at 9:03 a.m. on September 11
Firefighters walk towards one of the tower at the World Trade Center before it collapsed
A fourth plane was headed for Washington but crashed in Shanksville after crew members and passengers tried to storm the cockpit.
Officially, the casualty count associated with the attacks is numbered at 2,996 – including 2,977 victims and 19 hijackers.
Thousands more were injured, and New York bore the brunt of the death toll – with an estimated 1,600 victims in the North Tower and another thousand in the South.
Harris and Trump will meet for the first time face-to-face for perhaps their only debate in the US presidential election.
The event will offer Americans their most detailed look at a campaign that has dramatically changed since the last debate in June.
Following the last debate, Biden has bowed out of the race while Trump survived an assassination attempt.
Harris, seen here on Tuesday, and Trump will meet for the first time face-to-face for perhaps their only debate in the US presidential election
Following the last debate, Biden has bowed out of the race while Trump, seen here last week, survived an assassination attempt
Harris is intent on demonstrating that she can press the Democratic case against Trump better than Biden did.
Trump, in turn, is trying to paint the vice president as an out-of-touch liberal while trying to win over voters skeptical he should return to the White House.
The 78-year-old has struggled to adapt to Harris, 59, who is the first woman, black person and person of South Asian descent to serve as vice president.
The former president has resorted to invoking racial and gender stereotypes, frustrating allies who want Trump to focus instead on policy differences.