President Joe Biden told U.S. troops gathered at Royal Air Force Mildenhall, U.K. on Wednesday that he keeps forgetting that he is the President of the United States after remembering that he was supposed to tell the crowd to stand at ease. Biden went on to admit that he had a stuttering problem and struggled with public speaking during adolescence.
“Thank you, and Sydney, you’re fourteen years old,” Biden said. “When I was fourteen, if you -” he then held up his hands, realizing that the entire audience was still standing at attention. “I keep forgetting I’m President,” Biden said.
“When I was fourteen years old, I would have been, I mean this sincerely, scared to death to stand up in front of a microphone with a large crowd or a small one,” Biden said. “See when I was a child I used to stutter badly, for real. I had great difficulty speaking in front of other people.”
"I keep forgetting I'm President." – President Biden pic.twitter.com/cRRhpAlOXO
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) June 9, 2021
On June 1, Biden wandered away from the podium during a speech about racism to promise ice cream to two young girls:
Video footage shows President Joe Biden wandering away from the podium while giving a speech so he could bend down and talk to two small girls sitting by the stage. After conversing with the children for a few moments, Biden returned to the dais to reveal that he promised they would receive “ice cream” after the event was over.
In the footage, Biden announces “And I gotta make one check-in” before shuffling away from the lectern and down to the spectators below, where he engages in lively conversation with two small children seated next to their mother.
Though the majority of the conversation is unintelligible, Biden can be heard telling one of the girls “Mommy owes you some ice cream,” eliciting raucous laughter from the crowd. The President then turns and marches back up to the podium, where he announces, “I just had to make sure the two girls got ice cream when this is over.”