US President Joe Biden has flummoxed a Christian charity worker by confusing him with a Secret Service agent.
A video of Biden's latest gaffe emerged on Monday, ahead of his meeting with Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — dubbed "the three amigos."
While on a trip to the Texas border city of El Paso he was introduced to a member of the Salvation Army at a migrant support centre run by the 157-year-old international organisation — which has some 1.7 million members.
"I spent some time with the Secret Service in Poland and Ukraine," Biden mumbled as he shook hands with the man dressed in the group's distinctive uniform.
The baffled soldier of the lord could only nod and gape in amazement at the president's confusion.
Founded in 1865 under the authority of the Treasury Department, the US Secret Service (USSS) was originally tasked with investigating currency counterfeiting. But following the assassination of President William McKinley in 1901, the service took on the responsibility of bodyguarding the president and other VIPs.
However, the service failed to prevent the assassinations of president John F. Kennedy in 1963 and his brother Robert Kennedy in 1968 when he was running for president, nor the near-fatal shooting of president Ronald Reagan in March 1981.
There are no public records of Biden serving as a USSS agent, whether in Poland, Ukraine or Washington.
The scene immediately following the near-fatal shooting of US president Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981
© AP Photo / RON EDMONDS / The scene immediately following the near-fatal shooting of US president Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981