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People On Twitter Lost It When Trump Said American Troops Seized ‘Airports’ During The Revolutionary War


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July 4 in 2019 featured the usual fireworks displays that set fields on fire and, if you prefer to avoid family barbeques, a great chance to stream all of Stranger Things 3. But it also came with a big moment for Donald Trump, who literally rolled tanks into Washington DC for a military spectacular.

That ticketed event also came with a speech from Trump, which of course included the riffing that he loves to do so much. No matter how scripted a speech is, even one about the soldiers of the American Revolution, there is always something completely inaccurate that will be said. And Trump didn’t disappoint on Thursday, claiming somehow that American troops controlled the skies and took back “airports” during the a war that started in 1775.

Trump, reading off a teleprompter, clearly got confused about whatever it was written there for him to say, claiming that airports existed well before the invention of, well, aviation.

Here’s the segment from the speech.

In June of 1775, the Continental Congress created a uniformed army out of the revolutionary forces encamped around Boston and New York and named after the great George Washington, commoner 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 ran the ramparts, it took over airports. IT did everything it had to do and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets’ red glare, it had nothing but victory.

There are a lot of errors in there, of course. The army wasn’t named after George Washington, and Cornwallis was not from Yorktown, that’s where the British under his command surrendered to end the war. There’s also a significant jump in time to Fort McHenry, which was a major battle site of the War of 1812 and later the inspiration for the Star Spangled Banner. But the big mistake is the airports thing which, by the way, would still be wrong if it were also a reference to the War of 1812.

That was a huge blunder, even in a speech so typically filled with false statements and misrememberings from Trump. And people kind of lost it on Twitter over it.

There were also a lot of jokes and edited images about Washington storming various airports.

https://twitter.com/HANSEN_SOGROOVY/status/1147157509230202880

https://twitter.com/jbillinson/status/1147142418996826112

He was also apparently quite a pilot.

https://twitter.com/LiberalDeadHead/status/1147110942624407553

At least one company thought it was a good time to remind everyone of the value of education.

Trump said later that the teleprompter cut out because of weather, which is at least an attempt to make an excuse.

The lesson is, as always, Twitter will always find a way to make jokes about a Trump speech.

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