Hot on the heels of forgetting to put his hand over his heart during the national anthem, President Trump’s got another slipup that has the internet going crazy.
During a “Fox and Friends” interview that aired Tuesday morning, Trump appeared to confuse Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea since 2012 who has been parading nuclear weapons around recently, with his father, Kim Jong Il.
Although Trump spoke broadly, referring to the leader — whichever one he meant — as “this gentleman,” there were a couple subtle hints that he might not know which one is currently in power or perhaps that they’re different people. It seems like Trump’s point was simply defending his decision to withhold information from interviews about his plans for dealing with Kim Jong Un and the recently bomb-happy North Korea. But through the noise, you can start to see his confusion.
Trump told Ainsley Earhardt during the interview that previous administrations have been “talking with this gentleman for a long time,” as if the person to whom he’s referring is still alive. “This gentleman,” who it might be easy to assume is the man currently running North Korea, is someone Trump claims “outplayed” both Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, when they held the presidency. Trump points to one of Clinton’s books, criticizing the fact that, in Trump’s words, Clinton claimed they “made such a great peace deal,” and labelling it “a joke.” Although both Clinton and Obama held office during Kim Jong Il’s reign, which spanned from 1994 to his death in 2011, Trump isn’t “playing” with the same person these past presidents did.
The first lady was there beside Trump for the interview, though it’s impossible to tell if she tried to once again subtly nudge him because the camera quickly zoomed in on the president, cutting her from the screen.
Watch the clip of Trump’s interview in the tweet below:
.@POTUS on tensions between U.S. and North Korea pic.twitter.com/k10z2tUxbH
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) April 18, 2017
As you can imagine, Twitter had a field day:
@anamariecox To be fair, if he knew that the guy’s name was Kim he’d assume it was a woman, so really “this gentleman” is an achievement.
— Geraldine (@everywhereist) April 18, 2017
Seth Rogan even joined in the fun, referencing his controversial 2014 movie, The Interview:
I think we did more research for our movie about killing Kim Jong Un than trump is in to actually killing him. https://t.co/2YyBPP84FL
— Seth Rogen (@Sethrogen) April 18, 2017
