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In another awkward moment for a political figure who has made awkwardness something of a cottage industry, President Donald Trump’s gaffe Monday morning stung perhaps more than any other in his string of faux pas.
As he was wrapping up his remarks about the mass shootings over the weekend, Trump said the latest attack took place in Toledo, Ohio. It actually happened in Dayton.
“If we are able to pass great legislation after all of these years, we will ensure that those who were attacked will not have died in vain,” the president said. “May God bless the memory of those who died in Toledo. May God protect them.”
Trump read his speech from a TelePrompTer, but it’s not clear if those prepared remarks had the mistaken word in them or if the president got it wrong. In any case, the official White House transcript of Trump’s remarks crossed out the president’s reference to Toledo, as shown here in a tweet from AP’s White House correspondent Zeke Miller.
From the official White House transcript: pic.twitter.com/ipvwJDT216
— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) August 5, 2019
While Trump proved to be geographically challenged when discussing the Ohio shooting, the president did not make the same mistake in reference to last week’s mass shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival. In fact, he never even mentioned Gilroy in his remarks.
Two mass shootings over the weekend left at least 29 people dead in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton.
To be fair, presidential candidate Joe Biden also messed up at a Sunday fundraiser, referring to “the tragic events in Houston today and also Michigan the day before.” Biden, in fact, doubly screwed up by not only getting the locations of the shootings wrong, but also mixing up the order, as the El Paso shooting occurred before the one in Dayton.
The Toledo mixup, of course, is just the latest in a long string of misspoken messages to the American people, whether it’s a slip of the tongue or a poorly edited tweet from the president in the middle of the night. Here are a few:
The mix-up: Referring to the town of Paradise, California, as Pleasure
The context: During a news conference last year after visiting the fire-ravaged remains of Paradise, the president said, “If you’re watching from New York or you are watching from Washington D.C., you don’t really see the gravity of it. And what we saw at Pleasure, what a name right now. But we just saw, we just left Pleasure …”
The mix-up: In late May 2017, the White House released a statement that said one of Trump’s goals during his trip to Israel was to “promote the possibility of lasting peach” in the region.
The Context: While the president himself may not have been at fault here, the gaffe still came out of the place he lives and it looked bad.
The mix-up: On May 31, at 12:06 a.m., Trump tweeted a strange and seemingly incomplete message that read: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.”
The context: Good question. While the word appears to be a sloppy attempt at typing ”coverage,” the world never got an explanation of what happened and what, if anything, “covfefe” really means.
The mix-up: During a news conference last year after Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the bench, Trump haltingly told reporters “I have great respect for … Justice Anthony — you know who I’m talking about — Justice Kennedy.”
The context: Trump seemed to have been mixed up about the retiring justice’s first and last names — or at least in what order they came.
The mix-up: In late 2016, Trump created one of his most infamous typos when he described the Chinese seizure of a U.S. Navy drone as an “unpresidented act.”
The context: It’s actually a pretty cool word, but that’s another story. Clearly the president meant to write ”unprecedented,” which is what he changed the erroneous tweet to four hours later.
The mix-up: During a campaign event before becoming president, Trump urged his supporters to “go and register. Make sure you get out and vote November 28.”
The context: In 2016, Election Day was Nov. 8.
The mix-up: In early 2018, Trump was on the field before the Georgia-Alabama football game in Atlanta, standing alongside military officers as “The Star-Spangled Banner” began to play and appearing to struggle to remember the words.
The context: Here you go:
Someone should teach Trump the old drag queen trick of repeatedly mouthing “watermelon” when you forget the words. pic.twitter.com/mNocb0Z1sG #NationalChampionship
— shauna (@goldengateblond) January 9, 2018
