President Biden appeared to stumble over the name of his secretary of defense, Lloyd Austin, as he crowed about taking heat for putting a “black man” in the crucial position.
The 81-year-old president made the remark while speaking about his record of appointing black people in his administration during a sit-down interview with Black Entertainment Television (BET) on Wednesday.
A clip of the exchange quickly exploded on social media after critics accused the gaffe-prone Biden of forgetting Austin’s name and instead just referring to him as “the black man.”
Others maintained that he stumbled over trying to say he had put “a black man” in the role.
“It’s all about treating people with dignity. For example, look at the heat I’m getting because I named a, uh, the secretary of defense, [unintelligible] black man,” Biden said.