A listless President Biden stumbled through a joint press conference Thursday with Kenyan President William Ruto.
The two leaders held the press conference as part of a lavish State visit with Mr. Ruto that included a bilateral meeting with Mr. Biden and a state dinner later in the evening.
During the press conference Mr. Biden, at 81 the oldest president in history, either struggled to hear or quit paying attention while the selected reporters were talking, forcing two of the four journalists who asked questions to repeat themselves.
Biden repeatedly had to ask for stage directions during a press conference and appeared stunned by the TV reporters shouting questions to him at the end.
Twice telling them he didn’t catch their questions, even snapping at one for asking a second question.
‘Is that it?’ Biden asked at one point during the proceedings, as reporters from U.S. and Kenyan media asked questions to each leader in a pre-cooked format.
‘What was my question?’ Biden asked a U.S. reporter who asked a long inquiry to Biden and Ruto at the same time.
‘Sir, your question was Haiti,’ the reporter told him.
Biden brought down the hammer when the first reporter he called on from a prepared list tried to ask him a pair of questions: one on Haiti, and another an International Criminal Court warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
‘One question,’ Biden intoned, although the reporter tried for two anyway.
Biden read conspicuously from printed notes during several of his answers, including while speaking about international lending institutions, injecting a few bromides.