Trump, 79, Forgets ‘Big' War He Stopped in Latest Gaffe
During his sit-down with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday, Trump repeated his boast that he's ended six wars since January.
But he went blank when trying to name the country involved in one of those peace deals.
'I solved major wars. I solved wars that have been going on for 31, 35, and 37 years,' Trump said. 'A couple quicker ones. One that was gonna go into a full-blown deal very quickly, you know the one that I'm talking about—it was a big one.'
He did not specify what the 'big one' was, leaving it to the reporters in the room to deduce.
At the meeting, Trump gestured at various conflicts that he claimed to have solved, including places where his role in peace negotiations is disputed.
'India, Pakistan. We're talking about big places,' he said, referring to a May ceasefire between the two nations.
On August 8, Trump presided over a joint peace declaration between Azerbaijan and Armenia, though that agreement 'does not in itself completely end the conflict.'
Trump also referred to a peace deal between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda, which was signed at the White House on June 27.
The deal, which Trump hailed as a 'glorious triumph, attempts to end fighting between the Congolese government and M23, a Rwanda-backed insurgent group that has seized land in the eastern part of the DRC.
But he flubbed the name of the country, calling DRC the 'Republic of Condo' before correcting himself.
'You just take a look at some of these wars. Go to Africa, we're talking about big places. Rwanda. Congo, the Republic of the Condo—Congo.'
The gaffe triggered a wave of mockery on social media, with critics joking that the phrase could have been a Freudian slip from the former real estate developer.
Not only did Trump botch the DRC's name of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), but he also confused it with one of its neighbors, the Republic of the Congo, sometimes called Congo-Brazzaville.
Trump has repeated his claim of ending six wars about 10 times, per PolitiFact, which rates the claim as 'mostly false.'
A White House official told the Daily Beast that the six wars Trump has ended are the conflicts between Israel and Iran, the DRC and Rwanda, Thailand and Cambodia, India and Pakistan, Armenia and Azerbaijan, and Egypt and Ethiopia.
Egypt and Ethiopia have not agreed to any formal peace agreement, and Indian officials have denied that Trump played a role in brokering peace with Pakistan.
'President Trump leaned on his relationships with both India and Pakistan to secure a ceasefire in this deadly conflict that could have gone nuclear without his involvement,' the official said.
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