Donald Trump makes a new gaffe as rivals ratchet-up challenges to his mental sharpness
Trump appeared to imply that Barack Obama was still president at a campaign event in New Hampshire.
GOP nomination hopefuls, lagging far behind Trump, aim to make political capital over his repeated gaffes.
Biden's campaign wants to mirror questions about the president's mental fitness by spotlighting Trump's blunders.
Former US President Donald Trump mistakenly told supporters that Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán had recently called on Barack Obama to step down as president of the US.
The gaffe occurred during Trump's speech at a campaign event in Claremont, New Hampshire, on Saturday, as he seeks the Republican nomination ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
In an October 2023 interview, he alleged that Orbán was asked what he would "advise President Obama," adding that the Hungarian leader wants Obama to "immediately resign." Obama's mandate ended in 2017 when Trump was inaugurated.
Last month, Trump made another blooper concerning Orbán, erroneously calling him the leader of Turkey during a rambling speech in Derry, New Hampshire.
The blunders come amid the media's fixation on Biden's mental acuity. A Washington Post-ABC News poll from May revealed that only 32% of respondents were confident in Biden's "mental sharpness" being adequate for the White House.
In line with campaigns to undermine 80-year-old Biden's credibility linked to his seniority and alleged mental decline, Trump's rivals are also challenging his mental capacities. The team behind Florida Gov. Ron DeStantis's stuttering presidential nomination campaign recently posted a thread of clumsy remarks made by Trump, who is 77 years old.
Former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, who has had a relatively successful presidential campaign so far, though she lags far behind her former boss, jabbed Trump at a recent event of Jewish donors for speaking positively about the leaders of China and North Korea. Haley said Trump was "confused" about which countries are US allies and adversaries, per The Washington Post.
Haley, 51, added "with all due respect, I don't get confused."
Biden's campaign plans to spotlight Trump's erratic behavior
Biden's campaign has taken to social media to mirror the slurs about the president's cognitive abilities, reported The Washington Post.
It has pointed out that Trump struggled to pronounce "Hamas" correctly and had made a series of several bizarre comments, including ruminating that the abbreviation for the United States is spelled like the word "us.""
"The Biden campaign feels like it's filling a void in media coverage because there's wall-to-wall coverage of everything President Biden says or stumbles on, but there is a lack of coverage of Donald Trump's increasingly erratic behavior," said an offical, speaking on the condition of anonymity to The Washington Post.
He said the aim was to show that Trump was "a dangerous, erratic person who's extreme and MAGA."
Trump's campaign hit back. Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump, in a statement, per The Washington Post, highlighted, "Biden falling onstage, mumbling his way through a speech, being confused on where to walk and tripping on the steps of Air Force One. There's no correcting that, and that will be seared into voter's minds."
Trump is running for president after failing to get reelected in the last US election. He is facing 91 felony counts that from five indictments in four criminal cases handed down this year.
Read the original article on Business Insider