‘Heaven Help Us All’: Trump’s Latest Brain Fumble Leaves Rubio Desperately Searching for an Escape Route as the Internet Sounds the Alarm
President Donald Trump, on a global stage at the G7 summit in France, embarrassingly showed how little he knows about world geography, apparently confusing countries that physically border Iran with those that don’t.
During a meeting with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, on Tuesday, June 16, Trump startingly claimed “you could walk right across the border” from Iran to Qatar as Secretary of State Marco Rubio fidgeted by his side, looking away, looking down, looking anywhere but at Trump or the emir.
“They are the closest to Iran physically, so, with other countries, I noticed that they had to travel about 45 minutes to get there. With you, you could walk right across the border, so you are in a more dangerous position,” an ignorant Trump blathered on to Al Thani.
All he had to do was look at a map. Qatar is 119 miles across the Persian Gulf from Iran, a long way away.
And even more embarrassingly, this isn’t the first time Trump has made this claim. He told reporters aboard Air Force One last fall, “They’re literally, you walk over from Iran to Qatar. You can walk it in one second. You go ‘boom boom,’ and now you’re in Qatar, that’s tough territory,” he nonsensically crowed, according to The New Republic.
But the real headscratcher opponents say is why no one in his close circle or none of his aides pulled him aside and showed him a map. That may have helped prevent this latest humiliation.
Social media devolved into speculation and mockery over what critics call Trump’s blatant ignorance.
“‘I can walk, I can walk!’ is probably something he’s been having to say a lot lately. It’s crowding his thoughts and spilling over into other topics. They don’t want him walking, not even out of view… that’s what this is telling,” an X user noted.
Others chimed in, “@realDonaldTrump #illiterate #uneducated #unfit Can barely make it across the room… but sure you can walk between these countries.”
This X user scoffed, “Dude can barely walk period. He has no idea where these countries are or anything about them. Senility.”
Trump fired most of the U.S. career diplomatic corps, experts with decades of experience on international policy and global tensions, when he returned to office for a second term in January of 2025, and this shows in his boondoggle of a war against Iran and other missteps his administration has made.
Another X user wondered, “Can’t someone stop Trump from these blunders? I think his people hate him. Why else would they allow this?”
This commenter did not mince words. “To be fair, he’s a moron at best and senile at worst.”
Trump has undertaken a massive restructuring of the State Department and diplomatic corps, recalling career ambassadors en masse and enacting major layoffs at the agency.
CNN reported last month that amid ongoing global crises, Trump’s State Department finished firing almost 250 foreign service officers by email.
More than 1,000 civil service officers have also been terminated since last summer, gutting the ranks of federal employees who could have lent expertise in what critics call Trump’s disastrous war on Iran and other foreign policy mistakes.
The State Department, according to CNN, says the layoffs and firings have not impacted operations and that they are intended to reduce overlaps.