‘One of the Dumbest Moments In American History’: Trump Viciously Mocked After He Struggles to Define the Declaration of Independence As His Presidential Cluelessness Hits New Low
President Donald Trump gave ABC News a tour of the Oval Office earlier this week and the results were disastrous for the commander in chief, whose lack of knowledge of basic U.S. history was on embarrassing display.
Asked, for one, about the portrait of James Monroe which hangs behind him, Trump responded, “I think the Monroe Doctrine is pretty important. It’s his claim to fame.”
O-kay. But it was his even weaker grade school response to a question from ABC’s Terry Moran about what the Declaration of Independence means to him that raised the most guffaws.
“Well, it means exactly what it says, it’s a declaration, it’s a declaration of unity and love and respect, and it means a lot and it’s something very special to our country,” Trump said.
It should be noted that immigrants have to correctly answer a similar question on citizenship tests. Hard to imagine a more ill-informed response.
“If the Democrats were better at this game, they would take Trump’s ‘explanation’ of the Declaration of Independence and run it as a 30-second ad, without comment, on every station they could find,” Georgia Recorder columnist Jay Bookman wrote on X.
The title of the document tells you it’s not a declaration “of unity, love or respect.” It is an unblinking proclamation that the 13 colonies were “free and independent states” no longer tethered to Great Britain.
Another president, Abraham Lincoln, offered a much better description of America’s founding document, calling it a “rebuke and a stumbling block to tyranny and oppression.”
But in Trump’s defense, it is a declaration.
To his critics, this moment ranked high among the president’s dimmest moments, which include his claims that wind turbines cause cancer, hurricanes can be nuked into submission, climate change is a Chinese hoax and ingesting disinfectant can cure COVID-19.
“This will be forever written as one of the dumbest moments in American history,” wrote one, on X. “And those who support him are part of that history.”
Trump’s latest malaprop made #MAGAmorons a top trending topic on X. One commenter wondered just what it would take for the president’s biggest supporters to at least acknowledge a Trump error.
“Bro, can these cultists stop for one second? Yall can’t admit he just doesn’t know what it says/had a brain fart?” he wrote. “You just look desperate and pathetic when you have to deflect and defend him like trained dogs. Like yall can’t laugh? Can Trump do no wrong?”
In MAGA’s defense, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone defending the president’s answer to the Declaration of Independence.
As for the Oval Office, Trump has overseen a dramatic redesign, featuring lots of gold ornaments — more in line with a king’s chamber than a chief executive’s headquarters. These include gold cherubs shipped from his Florida estate to be placed on the shelves above the doorways. “They say angels bring good luck,” he explained to “Fox and Friends.”
And of course there’s an abundance of photos of himself, including his infamous mugshot as featured on the cover of The New York Post.
Kate Andersen Brower, who has written several books on the White House, said the renovations are “definitely in keeping with his New York real estate tycoon image”.
She said she cannot think of a president who has made “such big changes” to the decorations in the Oval Office.