A frail-looking Joe Biden had to be led around by the 70-year-old Angolan President João Lourenço during his first and only state visit to Africa on Tuesday – before making a series of awkward and confused comments.
Lourenço pointed to a step so the 82-year-old didn’t trip as he made his way onto the podium at an arrival ceremony outside the presidential palace in Luanda on Tuesday.
‘Welcome to America,’ Biden joked, when he was peppered with questions from U.S. journalists after the leaders concluded their opening remarks.
Reporters had shouted questions about Biden’s controversial pardon of his son Hunter and whether he expected President-elect Donald Trump to continue investing in Africa.
Biden’s main public engagement was a speech delivered outside the National Slavery Museum.
‘I just got off the phone with the vice president, telling her I’m sorry she’s not with me, being here today,’ he said of Vice President Kamala Harris, who would be busy setting up her administration had the November election gone the other way.
‘You know with you and Angola – a vibrant city,’ Biden said, before correcting himself. ‘Look, not the city, the city I know is not Angola – in Angola in a vibrant city.’
While the president appeared upbeat, he noted to the crowd that they were ‘gathered at a solemn location.’
He spoke of the original ‘friendship’ between Angola and the United States.
‘We hear them in the wind and the waves – young women, young men, born free in the highlands of Angola, only to be captured, bound and forced on a death march along this very coast, to this spot, by slave traders in the year 1619,’ Biden said.
He noted how ‘a third of those souls did not survive the journey.’
Christianity and new names were forced on the first African slaves.
Two were called Anthony and Isabella and their son was William Tucker – considered the first African-American born in what’s now the United States.
Three of Tucker’s descendants were seated front row for the president’s speech.
Biden called slavey ‘our nation’s original sin.’
‘One that’s haunted America and cast a long shadow since,’ he continued. ‘From the bloody Civil War that nearly tore my nation apart to the long battle with Jim Crow from the 1960s.’
The 82-year-old reminded the audience that the civil rights movement is what got the now-president interested in politics.
‘To the still unfinished reckoning on racial injustice in my country today,’ Biden said.
‘We’re going to right history, not erase history,’ the president pledged.
Conservatives have taken issue with the teaching of ‘critical race theory,’ which argues that racism is systemic in the United States. That has drawn attention to how the history of slavery and race relations are taught in public schools.
Before wrapping his remarks, Biden drew attention to the Lobito Corridor railway project that he was in Angola to tout.
‘I must tell you up front, with the American press here, I’m probably the most pro-rail guy in America,’ ‘Amtrak Joe’ divulged.
He also highlighted that American airlines were adding flights to Angola.
‘So you don’t have to fly to Paris to get here – although Paris is pretty nice,’ Biden said.
President-elect Donald Trump announced Monday night that he would be flying to Paris this weekend for a reopening ceremony of the Notre Dame cathedral – an event Biden is expected to skip.
The president also made light of the little time left he had in office – with Trump set to take back over on January 20.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, I’m in the final weeks of my presidency,’ Biden said. ‘You don’t have to clap for that,’ he said to laughs.
‘You can if you want,’ the president added. ‘But I wanted to come to Angola.’
