President Joe Biden attracted raised eyebrows on Wednesday after a clip aired of him referring in an interview to Lloyd Austin III as the “Black man”—having apparently blanked on his own defense secretary’s name.
The president, in a sitdown with Black Entertainment Television, was referring to his record in hiring Black people in his administration when the flub occurred. “It’s all about treating people with dignity,” Biden said. “For example, look at the heat I’m getting because I named a, uh, the secretary of defense, the Black man.”
When pressed for comment by reporters on Thursday, Sabrina Singh, a Pentagon spokesperson, twice repeated that Austin had “absolute confidence” in Biden and referred further questions to the White House, according to The New York Times.
