A gaffe would be Biden misspeaking in a way that generated negative news coverage.
I am going to use the definition of news conference from UCSB's American Presidency Project: "The term "news conference" refers simply to an interaction between the President and multiple members of the press in a relatively formal setting. In a "news conference," the President and the press meet specifically for the President to respond to press questions." The APP records any presidential press/news conferences ~monthly I think so if something is ambiguous, I will wait until they make a determination to resolve the market. (Note they also keep track of "Exchanges with Reporters" which I will not count as news/press conferences).
Here is the link to the UCSB's American presidency project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/presidential-news-conferences
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@traders I am traveling this weekend so will resolve on Monday morning (apologies for the delay) after reading the news articles in the comments. I am leaving the market open so that traders have the opportunity to adjust their positions based on their own reading of these articles.
@DismalScientist this search query on UCSB's APP site shows that two press conferences (or what they refer to as "news conferences") have occured from the question creation date to the question closing date. The title says "his next press conference" which implies he has to make a gaffe at his literal next press conference after the question was created (on Feb 24); this was the conference with the Japanese PM, titled by the APP as, "The President's News Conference With Prime Minister Fumio Kishida of Japan".
Please make a determination if Biden made any gaffes during the conference and resolve this question.
@vitamind Thank you for sending this. In a short review of press coverage, I did not see any evidence of a gaffe. I am leaving the question open for one more day in case anyone has objections or finds evidence of a gaffe.
@Dynd I thought he said this after the conference, not at it; I'll take the risk of buying Yes here since the question has been reopened...
@Dynd @DismalScientist The "20th century" gaffe probably resolves this market as YES. It happens near the end of the press conference and the (conservative) press largely ran with it as a gaffe.
https://nypost.com/2024/04/10/us-news/biden-tells-arizonans-elect-me-im-in-the-20th-century-in-latest-brutal-gaffe/
https://www.foxnews.com/media/biden-mocked-after-im-20th-century-gaffe-finally-got-something-right
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/apr/10/biden-declares-hes-living-in-20th-century-in-lates/
@sinuboh the xenophobic does it for me considering the resolution criteria: "A gaffe would be Biden misspeaking in a way that generated negative news coverage." - a gaffe doesn't need to be something that is funny or cringe, albeit that's what most of Biden's gaffes are.
The Fox News article linked above says, "Japanese officials at the embassy in Washington, D.C. told Fox News Digital that they had spoken to the Biden administration about the remarks and were informed the president's words were not meant to be derogatory." - in so many words: he misspoke generating negative press coverage, particularly in Japan.
@vitamind
Additionally in another comment Dismal says that:
"Just to give you a sense of how I am thinking about gaffes, I had a similar market for the state of the union and resolved yes because he said "illegal" and mispronounced Laken Riley. I think of these as relatively small gaffes but large enough that they did count."
Also I don't think the xenophobic comment happened during the press conference. On the article it says it happened at a fundraiser campaign. But I still think it's a yes resolution.
@sinuboh ah, yes, you're right, it wasn't at the conference.
Well based on that comment from the OP, this could resolve the question Yes:
"Q. I'll ask you briefly. On the issue of abortion, sir, respectfully, what do you say to the people of Arizona right now who are witnessing a law go in place that dates back to the Civil War era?
President Biden. Elect me. I'm in the 20—it's the 20th century—21st century, not back then. They weren't even a State. I find——"
(from APP)
@vitamind It's a subjective thing, but I'm only seeing partisan outlets calling this a "flub." I'm not sure that the kind of thing pretty much everyone does on a regular basis is a "gaffe," and I wouldn't resolve yes if the only coverage were from outlets making a concerted effort to drum up a report.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this press conference (is this his “next conference” ??) with the Kenyan President. There are several news articles which gloss over several instances during the conference: one where he appears a tad confused on whom was meant to be taking a question, and another one where he asks two reporters to repeat their questions (best one is probably from the Washington Times).
As per resolution criteria, I don't think he misspoke throughout the whole conference, and while the aforementioned instances probably show his age, they aren't gaffes as defined in the question.
@chrisjbillington does the absence of questions make it not a press conference? I don't think so...
Edit: never mind, I see dismal scientists definition below - putting that into the question description may be handy?
@Dynd that speech is very unlikely to count as a press conference, so I hope you're betting on a future gaffe. I'd rather not keep betting against you because I don't really know what the chances are a gaffe in a press conference are, but I do know that that speech won't count.
@chrisjbillington You can keep betting against me. The chance of a 81 year old senile man making a gaffe are higher than 60% in my opinion.