President Donald Trump blamed a faulty teleprompter for his claim during remarks he made at a July 4th event that the Continental Army “took over the airports” during the Revolutionary War. He was severely mocked for the flub as aeroplane was invented in 1903.
“The teleprompter went out,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House for a weekend at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey.
“It just went out – it went kaput.”
Donald Trump
During his Independence Day speech paying tribute to the military, Trump sowed confusion when he began talking about air defenses during the American Revolution, which took place more than a century before the invention of the airplane.
“Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports,” Trump said of the fighting force created by the Continental Congress in 1775.
Trump didn’t even acknowledge the mistake, instead he boasted about his memory. Trump said it wasn’t pleasant to see the scrolling stop as he was delivering his highly anticipated speech.
“That’s not a good feeling when you’re standing in front of millions and millions of people,” he said. “I guess the rain knocked out the teleprompter.”
Still, he said his memory of the speech otherwise served him well. “I knew the speech very well so I was able to do it without a teleprompter,” he said. “And it was actually hard to look at anyway because of the rain.”
Here is Trump’s full riff on the American Revolution military:
“In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a unified Army out of the Revolutionary Forces encamped around Boston and New York, and named after the great George Washington, commander in chief. The Continental Army suffered a bitter winter of Valley Forge, found glory across the waters of the Delaware and seized victory from Cornwallis of Yorktown.
“Our Army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rocket’s red glare it had nothing but victory. And when dawn came, their star-spangled banner waved defiant.”
