🔗 Share this article

This week, Indonesia's leader Prabowo Subianto thought he was having a private conversation with US President Donald Trump during Middle East peace talks in Egypt.

However, a live microphone situation revealed Prabowo asking Trump to organize a meeting with his son Don Jr, both of whom hold positions at the family business.

It represented only one in a series of gaffes committed by world leaders when they assume they're off the record.

Below are several additional memorable blunders:

Organ Transplants and Everlasting Life

At a military parade in Beijing in early autumn, China's leader Xi Jinping and Russia's head Vladimir Putin were overheard talking about organ transplants as a approach for prolonging life.

"Vital organs can be continuously replaced. The longer you live, the younger you become, and it's possible to even achieve immortality," the Russian translator was heard saying.

Xi, who was off camera, responded 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 joked about the plight of residents in the Pacific experiencing rising sea levels.

Dutton was conversing with then-prime minister Tony Abbott, who had recently come back from climate change talks with Pacific Island leaders in Port Moresby.

Noting that a migration discussion was running on "delayed schedule", Abbott responded: "There was a bit of that up in Port Moresby."

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

The comments provoked anger from regional nations and climate activists, while the political opponents called for Dutton to issue an apology.

Peter Dutton recorded making jokes with Tony Abbott about coastal flooding

'Bigoted Woman'

As Labour prime minister Gordon Brown was campaigning in 2010, he encountered a voter who questioned him on migration and the economy.

Remaining connected to a broadcast microphone when he got into his vehicle, Brown was recorded stating: "That went terribly – they should never have put me with that individual. Who thought of that? Absurd."

When questioned about she had said, he answered: "All topics, she was just a prejudiced person."

This incident dominated headlines for an extended period and Brown ultimately lost the political race.

'I Cannot Bear Netanyahu. He Lies.'

Ex-American leader Barack Obama was in conversation at the international conference in Cannes in 2011 with France's leader Nicolas Sarkozy when their remarks about Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu were picked up by a live microphone.

Sarkozy said: "I can't stand Netanyahu. He's a liar."

According to a version from a French interpreter cited by Reuters, Obama responded: "You're fed up with him but I must work with him more often than you."

'Major League ***hole'

A classic recording incident from former White House hopeful George W. Bush happened as he made a negative comment about a reporter from The New York Times.

The Republican presidential nominee was unaware that a recording device was active when he leaned over to Dick Cheney at a Labor Day rally and remarked, "There's Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New York Times."

Cheney answered: "Absolutely, he is, definitely."

Bush at a political gathering in 2000