President Biden thanked his Vietnamese counterpart on Monday in a since-deleted tweet that erroneously featured the leader of the country’s national assembly.
“President Vo Van Thuong, thank you for such a productive meeting. This partnership is about unleashing our peoples’ potential and, with it, a range of incredible possibilities,” read the 80-year-old president’s post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
The image in the post, however, was not of the president meeting Thuong, but one of Biden greeting Vietnam’s National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue.
Both men are bespectacled and have black hair parted to the same side.
The tweet, which came from Biden’s official @POTUS account, was later deleted and has not been replaced as of late Monday night.
“YIKES,” writer John Hasson said in a tweet after spotting the error.
“SMARTEST PEOPLE IN THE ROOM,” National Review contributor Pradheep Shanker sarcastically noted in a tweet.
Biden met with both pols in Hanoi on Monday during his visit to the socialist republic.
His meeting and luncheon with Thuong took place at the presidential palace, where the two leaders discussed cooperation issues, business, economic ties, and Vietnam’s aspirations to become an upper income country, according to a White House pool report.
Biden later met with Hue at the National Assembly and the two similarly discussed the bilateral relationship between the US and Vietnam, future cooperation opportunities and Vietnam War legacy issues.
The social media blunder is not the first time White House staffers have had to scramble to delete erroneous or errant tweets.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was mocked last month for posting a tweet suggesting that she once ran for president of the United States.
“Investing in America means investing in ALL of America,” read Jean-Pierre’s since-deleted post on X. “When I ran for President, I made a promise that I would leave no part of the country behind.”
The White House also infamously deleted a tweet last November that gave the Biden administration credit for a boost in retirees’ Social Security checks after users fact-checked the claim and pointed out the increase was tied to a cost of living adjustment based on the soaring level of inflation.
The president’s Vietnam pitstop, aimed at shoring up relations with the leadership of a country widely seen as a strategically important Asia Pacific ally, came after a two day stop in India for the G-20 summit.
Biden joked that he was ready for a nap during a press conference in Vietnam on Sunday.
“I tell you what, I don’t know about you, but I’m going to go to bed,” Biden said in response to a question about why he hasn’t spoken to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.