Demonstrating an otherwise impossible unawareness

I am seeing more and more of this and I do not know whether it is a frequency illusion or random chance or symptomatic of something deeper.  

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona:

"I think it was President Reagan who said, 'We're from the government. We're here to help!'"

Here's the actual quote:

"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help." pic.twitter.com/Hgxpt2Xdoh

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) November 27, 2023

Someone with, presumably, a solid education in a position of power or influence revealing deep unawareness of context, misinterpretation of facts or simply obliviousness.  Miguel Cardona (PhD from Connecticut University) would have been thirteen at the close of Ronald Reagan's administration. Right on the cusp of being reasonable that he should actually remember some of that history and dismissing it as him just being a kid.  Regardless, his entire career has been in government and education.  You sure would have thought he knew the full context of Reagan's quote.

Maybe his testimony was written by a young staffer who did not know better and he didn't have a chance to check the transcript before he testified.  Or maybe he just verbally fumbled.

All seemingly unlikely explanations but at least somewhat plausible.

A few weeks ago I saw something similar in an interview with Bill Maher.  It was some reasonably fundamental reality which seemed improbable and unlikely to him but is widely know to everyone else.  I don't remember the topic but an analogy would have been had he claimed that the defund the police movement had not affected policing.  It is widely known and understood by most people and ardently and ideologically denied by a few.

There were at least a couple of other instances in the past month.

Smart people professing or accidentally revealing that they are completely unaware of something which is widely known by everyone else.  

It feels like a real phenomenon but perhaps it is only an illusion.  I'll have to pay attention and see how often it occurs.