Joe Biden was in Hanoi on Sunday, meeting with Vietnam’s Communist Party leader, General Secretary Nguyễn Phú Trọng.
After the meeting, he made some remarks and took a few questions from the press. We probably don’t even have to say anymore that it didn’t go well, you can just assume that there are going to be big embarrassing issues.
Biden started in confusion about whether it was evening there (it was).
BIDEN: "Good evening, everyone. It is evening, isn't it? This around the world in five days is interesting. Well, one of my staff members said, 'Remember the famous song, Good Morning, Vietnam?' Well, good evening, Vietnam." pic.twitter.com/PjvBtiVcLN
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) September 10, 2023
I think he was trying to make a joke about “Good Morning, Vietnam,” which was a famous Robin Williams movie, not a “famous song.” And maybe that’s not the best movie to bring up when you’re in Vietnam. As my colleague Andrew Malcolm observed in his post about Joe Biden’s visit, Biden said his Afghanistan withdrawal would not be as bad as the Saigon panic, but then it was.
But that was the good part. It was all downhill from there once the presser started. Although to be fair, it’s not much of a presser when he limits it to five preselected reporters that “they gave me here.”