President Donald Trump, 79, showered a fellow president with compliments but seemed to forget his name.
“We’re joined today by a very, very brave, wonderful man,” Trump, 79, said during his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, referring to the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Felix Tshisekedi, 62.
Trump then attempted to announce Tshisekedi’s name but stumbled: “The president of the Congo… president… president, would you stand up please,” he said, before repeatedly calling the president—whom he never named—“brave.”
In response to a request for comment, a White House spokesperson dismissed reports of Trump forgetting a fellow president’s name as a “stupid” story.
Thursday’s speech is not the first time Trump has struggled to say the DRC president’s name, as he was previously mocked for mispronouncing both the president’s name and the country’s name.
In August, while Trump was bragging about a peace deal between the DRC and Rwanda after decades of conflict, he flubbed the country’s name, calling it the “Republic of Condo” before correcting himself.
At a press event in December—where Trump welcomed the DRC president and Rwandan President Paul Kagame to celebrate the signing of the peace deal—he took several seconds to figure out how to pronounce Tshisekedi’s name.
“Don’t interrupt Donald Trump when he’s in the middle of a little stroke,” Jimmy Kimmel said on his late-night show, correctly pronouncing Tshisekedi’s name while playing a clip of Trump severely mispronouncing it.
Though Kimmel’s ”little stroke” joke was meant for laughs, prominent physician Dr. Bruce Davidson told The Daily Beast Podcast in January that the oldest inaugurated president may be concealing a stroke after The Wall Street Journal reported that the president admitted to taking high doses of aspirin.
“I read the report that he was taking 325mg of aspirin, and that is only recommended for people who’ve had a stroke to prevent a second stroke from a partially blocked artery,” Davidson said.
Nonetheless, the president’s forgetfulness has been a prominent feature of his second term.
During a January interview with New York Magazine, he spoke about his father’s “problem” but needed White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s help to recall that his father—Fred Trump—had Alzheimer’s.
After forgetting the disease’s name, the president declared that he did not have it himself—contradicting what his niece, Mary Trump, told The Daily Beast Podcast.
“There are times I look at him, and I see my grandfather,” Mary said. “I see that same look of confusion. I see that he does not always seem to be oriented to time and place. His short-term memory seems to be deteriorating,” she added.
Meanwhile, the president told NBC’s Tom Llamas on Wednesday that he feels ”great” as he approaches his 80th birthday.
“I mean, physically and mentally, I feel like I did 50 years ago,” Trump said, before adding, “There’ll be a time when I won’t be able to give you that answer. But that time hasn’t come, you know.”
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