🔗 Share this article

This week, Indonesia's President Prabowo Subianto believed he was a confidential discussion with American leader Donald Trump during Middle East peace talks in Egypt.

However, a hot-mic incident captured Prabowo requesting Trump to organize a meeting with his son Don Jr, both of whom hold positions at the Trump organization.

This was just one in a series of missteps committed by world leaders when they assume no one can hear them.

Below are several additional noteworthy blunders:

Organ Transplants and Immortality

During a defense ceremony in Beijing this September, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russia's head Vladimir Putin were overheard discussing organ transplants as a approach for extending lifespan.

"Human organs can be continuously replaced. The longer you live, the younger you become, and it's possible to even reach eternal life," the Russian translator was heard saying.

Xi, who was not visible, answered in Chinese: "Some predict that in the current era people may live to 150 years old."

Dialogue recorded from China's leader Xi Jinping and Russian leader Vladimir Putin

'Sea Rising at Your Door'

Former Australian immigration minister Peter Dutton came under fire in 2015 when he made light about the plight of residents in the Pacific facing rising sea levels.

Dutton was speaking to former PM Tony Abbott, who had just returned from climate change talks with regional heads in Port Moresby.

Noting that a migration discussion was running on "Cape York time", Abbott replied: "There was a similar situation up in Port Moresby."

Dutton commented: "Time doesn't mean anything when you're about to have water lapping at your door."

These remarks provoked anger from Pacific Islands and environmentalists, while the opposition Labor party called for Dutton to issue an apology.

Peter Dutton recorded making jokes with Tony Abbott about coastal flooding

'Prejudiced Voter'

As Labour prime minister Gordon Brown was on the trail in 2010, he encountered a voter who questioned him on immigration and the economic situation.

Still wired up to a Sky news microphone when he entered the car, Brown was heard saying: "That was a disaster – they should never have put me with that woman. Who thought of that? Ridiculous."

Asked what she had said, he replied: "All topics, she was just a bigoted woman."

The scandal received extensive coverage for weeks and Brown ultimately lost the political race.

'I Can't Stand Netanyahu. He's a Liar.'

Ex-American leader Barack Obama was in conversation at the international conference in Cannes in 2011 with then French president Nicolas Sarkozy when their comments about Israel's prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu were picked up by a live microphone.

Sarkozy stated: "I cannot bear Netanyahu. He deceives."

According to a version from a translator cited by Reuters, Obama responded: "You're fed up with him but I have to deal with him more often than you."

'Total ***hole'

A vintage recording incident from then US presidential candidate George W. Bush occurred when he made a negative comment about a journalist from The New York Times.

The Republican presidential nominee was didn't realize that a microphone was live when he leaned over to Dick Cheney at a Labor Day rally and remarked, "There's Adam Clymer, complete jerk from the New York Times."

Cheney responded: "Oh yeah, that's true, big time."

Bush at a political gathering in 2000