'Can't Get This to Function at All': 'Confused' Joe Biden Suffers Mic Malfunction at Quad Summit

US President Joe Biden has yet again suffered a microphone failure, this time at the Quad Leaders Summit at the White House. Earlier this month, Secretary of State Antony Blinken fought off laughter after he was quizzed by Republicans as to who in the White House "pushes the button and cuts (President Biden) off mid-sentence".

US President Joe Biden was left visibly flummoxed after his microphone stopped working just before he was about to deliver his remarks at the Quad Leaders Summit at the White House on Friday.

A confused Joe Biden tells his handler he can’t get his microphone to function.

Then the feed cuts out. pic.twitter.com/2bVA6FjKUs

— Kyle Martinsen (@KyleMartinsen_) September 24, 2021

"I can't get this to function at all", Biden told an aide, who walked up to him after the US president motioned to him across the room. Immediately afterwards, the live video feed of the event was briefly cut out.

The US president was slated to speak after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga, one of the attendants, was done delivering his remarks at the event, the first of its kind.

The four-nation "Quadrilateral Security Dialogue", or the Quad, is comprised of Australia, India, Japan, and the US. It caters to upholding a "free" and "open" Indo-Pacific region amid concerns expressed by US-led western allies and countries like India about China's rise in the region.

Beijing is currently involved in maritime disputes with several of its ASEAN neighbours in the South China Sea and Japan in the East China Sea. The People's Liberation Army is also embroiled in a more than year-old standoff with the Indian Army along the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh between the two Asian powerhouses.

China has described the grouping as an "Asian NATO" meant to contain its economic and military rise.

The summit at the White House marked the first time the leaders of the four nations convened in-person in a bid to coordinate their security, diplomatic, and economic strategies on a range of matters, including the security situations in the Indo-Pacific region and Afghanistan, critical and emerging technologies, climate change, as well as the production of COVID vaccines.

"We will continue to build habits of cooperation; our leaders and foreign ministers will meet annually and our senior officials will meet regularly. Our working groups will continue their steady tempo to produce the cooperation necessary to build a stronger region", said a joint statement at the conclusion of the Quad summit.