Biden’s latest gaffe has him in the same camp as Trump: ‘We can’t be trusted’

President Joe Biden was in Tampa to attack Florida’s draconian new six-week abortion ban

President Joe Biden made an unfortunate gaffe on Tuesday as he tried to slam his Republican rival Donald Trump on stage at a campaign event about abortion care and reproductive rights in Florida.

Speaking to a crowd of supporters, the president slipped up as he asked how many more times he needs to prove “we” can’t be trusted.

“Folks, in a sense, I don’t know why we’re surprised by Trump,” he said.

“How many times does he have to prove we can’t be trusted?” he asked.

Mistakenly saying “we” instead of “he”, Mr Biden accidentally lumped himself in with his Republican rival.

This marks only the latest in a long series of gaffes the president has made while speaking in public, with his track record of blunders increasingly used by Mr Trump and his supporters to claim that the 81-year-old is too old to serve another term in the White House and is in a state of “cognitive decline”.

However, Mr Trump, at the similar age of 77, also contradicts himself in arguing the reverse: that his successor is a brilliant criminal mastermind who has “weaponised” the justice system against him, claiming, without evidence, that all of the indictments he is currently battling have been launched against him at Mr Biden in order to damage his White House campaign.

Mr Trump meanwhile has also had plenty of “senior moments” of his own, notably confusing his former Republican rival Nikki Haley with former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, mixing up Mr Biden with his own predecessor, Barack Obama, and even reportedly falling asleep during his Manhattan hush money trial.

Mr Biden was in Tampa on Tuesaday to headline a campaign event at Hillsborough Community College focused on rallying women and supporters of reproductive rights just one week before a new six-week ban on abortion takes effect in Florida.

The ban, which was recently upheld and allowed to go into effect by Florida’s Supreme Court after being enacted under Governor Ron DeSantis, effectively prevents the procedure altogether. Most women will not even know they are pregnant before they have gone over the limit.

Florida was previously an outlier among Republican-controlled states in the southeastern US by having comparatively lenient abortion laws.

Because of this, the state’s new legislation will make abortion inaccessible for a broad swath of Americans – unless voters approve a ballot initiative to enshrine reproductive rights into state law this November.

US president Joe Biden speaks about reproductive freedom in Tampa, Florida, on 23 April 2024 (AFP/Getty)

And the president’s campaign is counting on those voters to juice turnout in his favour.

During his address to a raucous crowd, Mr Biden also hit out at Mr Trump for selling $60 Bibles, commenting: “He said there has to be punishment for women exercising their reproductive freedom... maybe it’s coming from that Bible he’s trying to sell.

“I almost wanted to buy one just to see what the hell is in it.”

He also quoted a passage from the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling about women not lacking political or electoral power, saying “MAGA Republicans” were “beginning to find out” just how powerful women can be as a political force.

The president noted that in states “all over this country”, including Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Virginia, voters had come out ”in record numbers to protect reproductive freedom”.

“This November, you can add Florida to that list,” he said, urging the crowd to “show up and vote already”.

“It was Donald Trump who ripped away the rights... of women in America,” he continued.

“We’ll teach Donald Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans a valuable lesson: Don’t mess with the women of America.”