President Biden on Thursday expressed his admiration for the “Congressional Black Caucus” during a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in his latest head-scratching moment.
The gaffe came as he delivered a speech in Washington at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 46th Annual Gala.
Biden, 80, celebrated gala award recipient Sister Norma Pimental, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, right before the blunder.
“I know Sister Norma lives the lessons nuns taught me growing up. Lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew: Feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome strangers,” the president said. “They echo what my dad taught me, and I mean this sincerely, my dad used to say, ‘Everyone, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.’”
“The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values,” he added, without stopping to correct himself.
Biden’s latest verbal mistake comes a week after he was ripped for inferring that African American and Hispanic workers don’t have “high school diplomas.”
“We’ve seen record lows in unemployment particularly — and I’ve focused on this my whole career — particularly for African Americans and Hispanic workers and veterans, you know, the workers without high school diplomas,” he said during an event at Prince George’s Community College in Maryland last week.
Biden boasted Thursday about the number of Hispanic members in his cabinet and took credit for “record low” Latino unemployment and other economic gains in the Hispanic community under his watch.
He also accused Republicans of “gutting the immigration system” during former President Donald Trump’s time in office and continuing to “undermine our border security today, blocking bipartisan reform.”
Biden looked over to both sides of the stage after concluding his remarks, and he put his palms up as he appeared to ask someone off-camera for directions on which way to exit the stage.
