US president Joe Biden mistakenly called Rishi Sunak “Mr President” as the two met in the Oval Office of The White House during UK prime minister’s two-day visit to Washington. “Well, Mr President … I just demoted you, Mr Prime Minister,” Joe Biden said as he quickly corrected himself.
During the meeting, Joe Biden told Rishi Sunak that the US-UK special relationship is in “real good shape” and that the US has no “closer ally than Great Britain.” Joe Biden said that he was “delighted” to see the prime minister in the US capital as Rishi Sunak welcomed US president’s “warm words” and lauded the “strength of our partnership, our friendship”.
“In the past few months we have met each other in San Diego and then we met in Belfast and we met Hiroshima. 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,” Joe Biden said.
“We will put our values front and centre as we’ve always done,” Rishi Sunak responded.
Joe Biden also mentioned that Winston Churchill and Franklin Delano Roosevelt met in the very same place more than seventy years ago.
“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 recalling that Churchill was once found wandering the halls of the White House in the middle of the night. Rishi Sunak joked that he wouldn’t be doing the same.
“There’s an awful lot of stories that are told, probably a bunch apocryphal about former prime ministers,” Joe Biden said.
“Wondering around at 3am in the morning? Winston Churchill bothering Mrs Roosevelt. Sir, don’t worry, you won’t see me there bothering you and the First Lady,” Rishi Sunak said.
Rishi 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, saying, “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.”
