What a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad week.  

Joe Biden’s embarrassing gaffes came thick and fast this week – after the president managed to fumble a series of high-profile domestic events on the world stage.

His litany of errors – including walking into flag poles, addressing people with the wrong names and rudely forgetting to shake foreign official’s hands – is coupled with the devastating blow that the 80-year-old president’s approval rating stands at 37 percent.

This is five percentage points lower than it was in February, and crucially, it is 10 points lower than his fierce 2020 Republican competitor, Donald Trump, in the latest embarrassing poll from the Washington Post. 

Meanwhile, there is a percussive thunder of calls for him to drop out of the running for the next election, from both the left and the right of the political landscape. 

Many are seriously questioning how Biden will be able to face a long presidential campaign for the Democrats if he struggles like he did the past week – and how he’ll handle the prospect of another four years in office. 

Biden’s gaffes with the Brazilian president: Walking off stage, running into a flag, no hand shake, and failed translator earpiece

On September 20, ailing Joe Biden seemed to produce gaffe after gaffe while on the UN stage alongside Brazil‘s President, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

Lula da Silva, 77, looked visibly irritated after the two leaders shared a stage to speak about their initiative to improve workers’ rights in each country – because Biden walked off without shaking his hand. 

Their diplomatic meeting got off to a labored start when Biden, 80, shuffled into a seven-foot Brazilian flag, leaving it teetering as he approached the podium. 

The president made a rambling speech about his ‘economic vision to rebuild our economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down’ while Lula watched on from his right flank. 

Meanwhile, during Lula’s speech, Biden fumbled with his headset, which he was using to hear a translated version. 

‘Can you hear me President Biden? This is an historical moment for Brazil, and for the US,’ Lula said at the start of his speech.

Biden continued to look confused as he grappled with the headset while Lula went on with his speech. At one point, Biden dropped his earpiece and raised his eyebrows in frustration.

International Labor Organization Director General Gilbert Houngbo took to the podium after the two world leaders, and Biden stooped to slowly grab a folder from the ground.

Houngbo shook hands with Biden and Lula in turn at the close of his speech – but Biden appeared to leave Lula hanging, awkwardly saluting the audience before shuffling off stage.

He appeared to be torn between giving a thumbs-up or a salute, and made a sloppy gesture combining the two.

As Biden turned his back on the Brazilian president, Lula looked annoyed and made a swiping gesture with his arm. They departed awkwardly from opposite sides. 

The series of mistakes and ill gestures were watched on the world stage – as the high-level meeting brought world leaders together at U.N. headquarters in New York.

President calls the Congressional Hispanic Caucus the ‘Black Caucus’ 

On September 22, the president made yet another public gaffe when all eyes were on him during a keynote speech in Washington, DC. 

Joe Biden mistakenly praised the ‘Congressional Black Caucus’ during a speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. 

The 80-year-old made the blunder during a speech at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s 46th Annual Gala. 

He had celebrated Sister Norma Pimental, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, for her gala award win moments before the mistake. 

Biden praised her for living the lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew before adding: ‘The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values.’

‘I know Sister Norma lives the lessons nuns taught me growing up,’ Biden said during the speech addressing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.

‘Lessons based on the Gospel of Matthew: feed the hungry, care for the sick, welcome strangers.’

‘They echo what my dad taught me, and I mean this sincerely, my dad used to say, ‘Everyone, everyone is entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.’

The president added: ‘The Congressional Black Caucus embodies all those values,’ without correcting his mistake. 

Biden repeats the same story about a white supremacist rally twice at the same event 

As well as making in-the-moment mistakes, Biden was also berated this week for repeating the same story twice at the same event in New York City.  

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was then forced to answer for Biden’s concerning, ailing behavior in front of journalists.

She said that President Joe Biden was ‘speaking from his heart’ when he repeated the same story twice at a Wednesday night fundraiser in New York City. 

Jean-Pierre was twice asked Friday about Biden’s flub – said in a room without cameras rolling but with several journalists present due to rules about covering 2024 finance events. 

A pool report from the event, held at food security expert Amy Goldman Fowler’s home, noted that Biden talked about how the white supremacist rally – and former President Donald Trump‘s reaction to it – in Charlottesville in August 2017 inspired him to run for the White House in the 2020 cycle. 

‘A few minutes later, he told the story again, nearly word for word,’ the pool report said. 

NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell asked Friday, ‘Is it any concern that he would fully retell a story in the same space at the same event?’ as polls show that a super-majority of Americans are worried that Biden  wouldn’t be effective through a second term.

‘Sometimes I re-speak as well from here and retell a story,’ Jean-Pierre said with a laugh.  

‘But look, I think it’s important to note that the president was speaking, as you said at a fundraiser and he was speaking from his heart,’ she continued. ‘He was speaking about why he’s decided to do this.’

‘And you hear the president talk about this, it’s always incredibly emotional for him. Cause he didn’t have to. He went through an incredibly difficult time when he was deciding to jump into the race,’ she added. 

Biden refers to rapper LL Cool J as ‘LL Jay Cool J’    

Adding to the long list of problematic things the President did this week, Joe Biden referred to legendary rapper LL Cool J as a ‘boy’ after mispronouncing his name at the Congressional Black Caucus.

On Saturday night, LL Cool J and MC Lyte received Phoenix Awards for their musical contributions at the annual ceremony.

While on stage, Biden said: ‘Two of the great artists of our time representing ground-breaking legacy of hip hop in America, LL Jay Cool J, uhhh…’ – as the audience laughed at his latest gaffe over the rapper’s name.

Biden then added: ‘By the way that boy – that man’s got biceps bigger than my thighs.’

The footage of his speech was quickly re-posted by right-wing RNC Research on social media, where commentators swiftly pointed out that referring to African Americans as ‘boy’ is widely considered a derogative term. 

It was yet another butchered speech for the most powerful man in the world.  

Biden claims he’s been to ‘every mass shooting’ – which he has not  

Joe Biden also – erroneously – claimed to have been to ‘every mass shooting’ this week. 

The bizarre remark came days after he falsely claimed to have visited Ground Zero the day after 9/11, and have left many demanding to know whether he is lying or forgetting.

Speaking alongside vice-president Kamala Harris in the White House Rose Garden, he said his administration had been ‘working relentlessly to do something’.

‘After every mass shooting, we hear a simple message, the same message heard all over the country, and I’ve been to every mass shooting,’ he told his audience.

There have more than 500 mass shootings in the US this year and critics on social media were scathing in their response to the latest tall story.

‘Suspicious, if true,’ tweeted former US diplomat Alberto Fernandez.

‘Every weekend should be therefore spent in Chicago instead of Delaware,’ added Fox News contributor Joe Concha.

The news comes as a new poll from the Washington Post has Biden trailing former president Trump in a theoretical 2024 match. The two men are the frontrunners for their party’s nomination for president.  

But questions are growing louder on whether Biden should run as Democrats such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom appear to be positioning themselves to take the mantle. 

According to the WaPo polling this weekend, Biden’s approval rating stands at about 37 percent, similar to where it was in May, but five percentage points lower than it was in February.

Biden’s disapproval figure is 56 percent. The poll also asked whether, in retrospect, voters approve or disapprove of the job Trump did while in office.

Forty-eight percent say they approve and 49 percent say they disapprove. When he left office in January of 2021, Trump’s approval was closer to 38 percent.

The poll’s matchup of the two likely candidates showed Trump polling ahead of Biden by 10 percentage points – 52 to 42 – among registered voters.

The current resident of the Oval Office is also ailing in his policy record. Biden has spent many of the last several weeks touting his signature economic plan, ‘Bidenomics.’ But his earned approval rating on his handling of the economy has plummeted to 30 percent – the lowest of his presidency.

Some 75 percent of Americans believe the economy is ‘not so good,’ or ‘poor,’ according to the poll. A whopping 87 percent of Americans say that gas and energy prices are ‘not so good’ or ‘poor.’ And 91 percent of people say the same about food prices.

A plurality of respondents (44 percent) said they are not as well of financially as before Biden took office, while 39 percent said they are in about the same position, and 15 percent said they are better off.

Jill Biden rescued her stony-faced husband Joe Biden from having to answer questions about impeachment at his first public appearance since House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the potentially devastating inquiry.

The first lady leaned over to whisper to the president and touched his arm when reporters started shouting questions about the probe during a Cabinet room meeting to discuss Biden’s Cancer Moonshot initiative.

Biden looked uncomfortable under the barrage of inquiries, stared at the ceiling, and made chewing motions with his mouth, but ultimately refused to talk as reporters were led out of the room.  

His wife stepped in as the White House ramped up their war with Republicans in the investigation into foreign business deals by Biden’s son Hunter.

The Cabinet meeting was on the Bidens’ initiative ‘to end cancer as we know it.’ 

Jill Biden praised her husband’s work on the issue, telling him on Wednesday that: ‘You did good things, Joe.’

The White House, meanwhile, has doubled down on its defense of the president, blasting the impeachment inquiry as ‘baseless,’ setting up a war room to combat the investigation, and sending a memo to news organizations to encourage greater scrutiny of Republican motives.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Wednesday called the Republicans’ impeachment probe a ‘baseless inquiry that the House Republicans can’t even really defend themselves.’

Republicans have been investigating Hunter Biden‘s foreign business dealings since they took control of the House in January. They are looking into whether Joe, who was vice president during the time period, personally benefited from his son’s work and if the family used Joe Biden’s official office for their personal gain.

President Biden has denied any involvement with his son’s business affairs. 

Jean-Pierre said on Wednesday that he has done nothing wrong. 

‘Republicans in Congress, right they have spent all year investigating the president, that’s what they’ve spent, and have turned up with no evidence that he did anything. I mean, that is what we heard over and over again, from their almost clear year-long investigation, and that’s because the President didn’t do anything wrong,’ she said in her daily press briefing.

The administration is also going on the offensive to address specific charges against the president. 

Earlier Wednesday, the White House said Biden was just calling to check in on Hunter when he was on calls with his son’s business associates. 

‘This is part of the right-wing’s misinformation machine to try to confuse people about what the truth is,’ White House spokesperson for oversight and investigations Ian Sams told CNN on Wednesday morning.

‘The truth is that the president, as he said publicly for years, calls his family every day to check in. He calls his son every day to check in. He calls his other family members to check in to see how they are doing. He loves them. They are a tight-knit family.’ 

Hunter’s former business partner Devon Archer told the House Oversight Committee in testimony this summer that Hunter had put his father on speakerphone during business meetings about 20 times.

At the time of Archer’s closed-door testimony, Democrats in the room said Archer described the calls as personal.

‘The witness indicated that Hunter spoke to his father every day, and approximately 20 times over the course of 10-year relationship, Hunter may have put his father on the phone with any number of different people, and they never once spoke about any business dealings,’ Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York said at the time. 

‘As he described it, it was all casual conversation, niceties, the weather, what’s going on. There wasn’t a single conversation about any of the business dealings that Hunter had,’ Goldman noted.

But Republican Chairman James Comer of Kentucky said Archer testified that Joe Biden ‘joined Hunter Biden’s dinners with his foreign business associates in person or by speakerphone over 20 times’ and was put on the phone to sell ‘the brand.’ 

Comer said the testimony shows ‘Joe Biden lied to the American people when he said he had no knowledge about his son’s business dealings and was not involved. Joe Biden was ‘the brand’ that his son sold around the world to enrich the Biden family.’ 

The White House has accused Republicans of election-year politics with its impeachment inquiry.

‘The president has been in politics for a long time. I think as he would say, he has seen a lot of malarkey along the way, but this might take the cake,’ Sams told CNN. ‘He’s focused on issues that matter to the American people.’

Sams is White House point person on countering Republican accusations against the president and his family. He is part of a war room established in the White House counsel’s office specifically to deal with GOP investigations.

He noted Biden, who was vice president at the time, was calling Hunter to check in because the family was also dealing with the illness of Beau Biden, the late son of the president. Beau Biden died in 2015 of brain cancer.

‘He was checking in with Hunter during a particularly hard time, a time where the family was going through Hunter’s brother Beau’s illness. Of course the president checks in,’ Sams said.

Hunter Biden has spoken about how he relapsed into his drug and alcohol addiction after his brother died. The Biden family later held an intervention to get him to do another stint in rehab.

It was during that intervention that Joe Biden told his son: ‘I don’t know what else to do. I’m so scared. Tell me what to do.’ 

Hunter Biden did get sober but his business dealings are being investigated by House Republicans. And the impeachment inquiry – the first step in the impeachment process – will investigate whether President Biden personally benefited from his son’s work.

Biden has said he had nothing to do with Hunter’s business deals.

Speaker McCarthy, under heavy pressure from the conservative wing of his party and facing threats to his speakership, declared on Tuesday the inquiry would begin. 

‘House Republicans have uncovered serious and credible allegations into President Biden’s conduct,’ McCarthy said. ‘Taken together these allegations paint a picture of a culture of corruption.’

‘These are allegations of abuse of power, obstruction and corruption. And they warrant further investigation by the House of Representatives. That’s why today I am directing our House committee to open a formal impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden,’ he noted.

Republicans have charged Biden and his family made millions off shell companies Hunter Biden formed when his father was vice president. Hunter had business deals with an energy company in the Ukraine, received a discounted stake in a private-equity firm in China, and did consulting for a Romanian real-estate magnate.

The president has denied any involvement in his son’s business dealings. But Republicans claim at least a dozen Biden family members could be involved in a scheme to benefit financially from Biden’s public office. 

House investigators are expected to issue subpoenas for the bank records of the president and his family. The GOP also claim Biden sat in on at least 24 calls with Hunter’s business partners and was referred to as ‘the big guy’ by Hunter’s business associates. And they say Joe Biden used pseudonyms to discuss his activities related to Ukraine with his son Hunter during his time as vice president.

It’s estimated Hunter raked in $40 million through 20 shell companies and fake accounts created while Joe Biden was vice president.

Newly released notes taken by IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley on the Hunter Biden probe back up his previous claims that top prosecutor David Weiss said he was not the ‘deciding person’ on the case.

The handwritten notes also directly refute a counteracting claim by an FBI agent also on Hunter’s case.

DailyMail.com obtained IRS Supervisory Agent Gary Shapley’s handwritten notes during an October 7, 2022 meeting with Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss – who was appointed as the top prosecutor on the Hunter case.

He quotes Weiss saying during that meeting that he was ‘not the deciding person’ on charging Hunter Biden with tax crimes, raising questions about potential improper handling of the case by DOJ. Shapley also recorded down that ‘Main DOJ’ said ‘no’ to Weiss’ request for special counsel status in D.C. 

Shapley’s attorneys sent the House Judiciary Committee a copy of his notes from the meeting following an FBI agent’s counterclaim – that Weiss actually never admitted that he was not the deciding person on the case.

The Washington Post published the account contradicting Shapley’s claims by FBI agent Thomas Sobocinski Tuesday, based on an obtained congressional transcript. Shapley’s lawyers say Sobocinski’s claims are inaccurate.

The back-and-forth comes a day after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unilaterally launched an impeachment inquiry of President Biden over his alleged connections to his son’s business dealings. As part of the inquiry, the GOP is also examining potential political interference by the Justice Department in the Hunter Biden criminal investigation. 

‘Yesterday the Washington Post published a story reportedly based on a transcript it obtained of the Committee’s interview of Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Special Agent in Charge Thomas J. Sobocinski,’ the letter by Shapley’s attorneys states. 

‘Sobocinski was one of seven attendees at the Oct. 7, 2022, meeting,’ the letter continues. 

According to his attorneys, Shapley wrote an email to his chain of command using notes he compiled during the meeting almost immediately after it concluded. 

Shapley turned over his Oct. 7 email to the House Ways and Means Committee detailing the events that transpired during the meeting, including Weiss’ statements about not having the final decision on the case. 

‘However, Mr. Sobocinski apparently acknowledged that he took no notes in the meeting, nor did he document it in any contemporaneous fashion afterwards. By contrast, SSA Shapley took notes during the meeting.’

Shapley’s attorneys attached the original version of the ‘contemporaneous handwritten notes’ that redacts information that has not yet been released by the Ways and Means Committee.

The notes, dated 10/7 in the top left corner, contain a handwritten scribble about a comment Weiss made during the meeting.

Shapley wrote in the notebook: ‘Weiss stated – He is not the deciding person.’ 

That directly contradicts Sobocinski’s testimony saying that he would have remembered if Weiss had said that he was not the deciding person.

In the testimony first obtained by the Washington Post, Sobocinski said he ‘never felt that [Weiss] needed approval’ to bring charges.

In addition, his understanding was that Weiss ‘had the authority to bring whatever he needed to do.’ 

He continued: ‘I never thought that anybody was there above David Weiss to say no.’

‘I went into that meeting believing he had the authority, and I have left that meeting believing he had the authority to bring charges.’

The discrepancies in testimony comes a month after Attorney General Merrick Garland promoted Weiss to special counsel status. 

Shapley wrote in the notes: ‘Weiss requested Special Counsel status in DC + Main DOJ said ‘no.’ 

It was nearly an entire year later that Garland decided to promote Weiss to special counsel.

Garland’s decision came after mounting pressure and IRS whistleblower allegations that Hunter received ‘special treatment’ during the criminal probe.

For months, Garland had maintained that Weiss had the ‘full authority’ to bring charges against Hunter without restraint and in any district. 

But Weiss himself contradicted himself, at first telling the House Judiciary Committee he had ‘responsibility for deciding where, when, and whether to file charges’, then latter saying his charging authority ‘is geographically limited to my home district’. 

He also claimed in a July letter that he had not asked Garland for special counsel status. 

That contradicts Shapley’s notes that he was denied the elevation by ‘Main DOJ.’ 

But now that he has special counsel status, he can charge Hunter in any district around the country. 

IRS agents Joe Ziegler and Gary Shapley testified under oath to House Republicans that their investigation ‘supported felony and misdemeanor tax charges,’ which were ultimately not brought against the president’s son Hunter due to political pressures.

Weiss tried to bring felony charges against him in Washington, D.C., they said, but was blocked by the district’s top federal prosecutor Matthew Graves, a Biden appointee.

The ‘special treatment’ for Hunter became a pattern that kept happening over and over, said the whistleblowers who were told they would get in ‘hot water’ if they tried to speak with President Joe Biden’s adult children and grandchildren over the course of their investigation. 

Hunter appeared in federal court on July 26 prepared to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges and walk away with just a slap on the wrist and no prison time. 

Republicans slammed as a ‘sweetheart deal’ that Biden’s DOJ put together to protect the president’s son.

However, after Judge Maryellen Noreika questioned the ‘diversion agreement’ of Hunter’s plea deal – a clause that gave him blanket immunity for a wide range of other potential charges, including illegal foreign lobbying – the deal blew up spectacularly.

Noreika dismissed the charges in Delaware after requests from the prosecution last month. 

Last week, federal prosecutors indicated that they will charge Hunter with a new gun crime by the end of the month. 

But they could still be bringing additional charges down the road related to his foreign business venture.