US President Joe Biden accidentally called UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak “Mr President” as the two met in the Oval Office of The White House during Mr Sunak’s two-day visit to Washington, DC.
“Well, Mr President ... I just demoted you, Mr Prime Minister,” Mr Biden said as he quickly corrected himself.
Mr Biden assured Mr Sunak that the US-UK special relationship is in “real good shape” and that the US has no “closer ally than Great Britain,” adding that he was “delighted” to see the prime minister in the US capital.
Mr Sunak welcomed Mr Biden’s “warm words” and lauded the “strength of our partnership, our friendship”.
“We will put our values front and centre as we’ve always done,” he said.
Mr Biden mentioned that Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt met in the very same place more than seven decades before.
“They asserted to the strength of the partnership between Great Britain and the United States with the strength of the free world. I still think there’s truth to that assertion,” he said, according to the Mirror.
Mr Sunak recalled that Mr Churchill was once found wandering the halls of the White House in the middle of the night, joking that he wouldn’t be doing the same.
He has been staying at the presidential guest house, Blair House, during his hectic visit. The US government bought the property after Eleanor Roosevelt discovered Mr Churchill carrying a cigar as he headed towards the private area of the first family at about 3am, the paper noted.
“There’s an awful lot of stories that are told, probably a bunch apocryphal about former prime ministers,” Mr Biden said.
“Wondering around at 3am in the morning? Winston Churchill bothering Mrs Roosevelt,” Mr Sunak said. “Sir, don’t worry, you won’t see me there bothering you and the First Lady.”
“In the past few months we have met each other in San Diego and then we met in Belfast and we met Hiroshima,” Mr Biden noted. “And now we’re here we’re going solve all the problems of the world in the next 20 minutes.”
“Together, we’re providing economic humanitarian aid and security assistance to Ukraine in their fight against the Russians,” the president added.
Mr Sunak said that “It’s daunting to think of the conversations that our predecessors had in this room when they had to speak of wars that they fought together, peace won together, incredible change in the lives of our citizens”.
“And again, for the first time in over half a century, we face a war on the European continent,” he added in reference to Russia’s war in Ukraine. “And as we’ve done before, the US and the UK, have stood together to support Ukraine and stand up for the values of democracy and freedom and make sure that they prevail, as I know we will.”
