US President Donald Trump’s gaffe-filled NATO press conference has sparked reactions.
According to The Independent, Trump during the Wednesday, July 8, presser mixed up Iran with Japan, calling it the “Islamic Republic of Japan.”
During the same media talk on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.”
Islamic Republic of Japan
Trump recalled the attack back in February when the US shot down a drone near the USS Abraham Lincoln.
As per the USA Today report, the drone was acting "aggressively" as the ship sailed in the Arabian Sea, about 500 miles from Iran's coast.
It happened right before the US and Israel launched an attack on Iran that led to a war that has been going on for almost 4 months now.
Trump told media, “We have an aircraft carrier that is one of the most beautiful in the world, it's one of the biggest, the (USS) Abraham Lincoln. And a few months ago, we had, I told this story yesterday, 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan."
The president went on to say the missiles were shot at the aircraft carrier over the course of an hour and they were all intercepted.
President Putin?
Moments later, Trump also mixed up Zelensky, who was sitting beside him, and Russian leader Vladimir Putin when he asked reporters if they had “a question for President Putin.”
The slip of tongue prompted the room to erupt in laughter, at which point Trump attempted to recover by repeating the prompt and suggesting he’d take the reporter’s question to the Russian president.
The internet reacts to Trump’s "Islamic Republic of Japan" slip of the tongue
The clip from the press conference where Trump called Iran the “Islamic Republic of Japan” went viral on social media, sparking widespread reaction.
A user asked, “Did he actually say that?”
“Is this what cognitive decline looks like?" another added.
The third one gushed, “Turns out verbal gaffes aren't partisan after all. The man who made political capital out of every Biden stumble just handed critics a clip they'll be talking about for a long time.”
“Someone please do something about him. We would be extremely grateful. Thank you, from the rest of the world,” an X user wrote.
