People can’t stop cracking up over the former president’s bizarre, bumbling speech.

Speaking outside Allentown, Pennsylvania, on Sunday, Donald Trump left everyone confused when he attempted to explain the Battle of Gettysburg, praised (and invented a quote from) Confederate General Robert E. Lee, and generally had no idea what he was talking about.

When his off-the-cuff remarks hit late-night television on Monday, the hosts couldn’t hide their laughter.

“You have to hand it to this guy: On the weekend before his unprecedented criminal trial begins, he somehow manages to overshadow it with this broken-brained interpretation of what happened at Gettysburg during the Civil War,” Jimmy Kimmel quipped.

    • Funderpants @lemmy.ca
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      4 months ago

      Yea, the guy is ignorant and is used to BSing his way through it. His wealth has long sheltered him from being called out on it.

      “look having nuclear…” Moron

      • Pringles@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it’s true! — but when you’re a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it’s four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."

        Donald “Tiny hands” Trump

    • Diplomjodler@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Being a moron is not enough. You also have to suffer from rapidly advancing dementia to be regarded as the literal second coming of Christ by “conservatives”.

      • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Honestly, that makes perfect sense. Their other darling president was a talentless hack, brainless politician with dementia, so it 100% tracks that they can’t get on their knees fast enough.

        • Billiam@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Their other darling president was a talentless hack, brainless politician entertainer with dementia

          Yeah, I’m not sure the right elected St. Ronnie or Trump because of their political acumen.

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            To be fair, and I say this as no fan of Ronnie Raygun, he seemed relatively normal until the later years. A jerkass right-wing nut in practice, who screwed up a LOT of things and set the stage for later disasters, but otherwise human. Possibly even personally likable. I didn’t cheer when he got shot, like.

            Trump is seven layers of freak criminal mental disease. If Jodie Foster’s Army was active and working today, I’d be dancing on the rooftops.

          • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            I’m not sure the right elected St. Ronnie or Trump because of their lack of political acumen.

            Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly why they elected both. Idiots are notoriously easy to manipulate and control.

          • Etterra@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Gawd I’d love to go back in time and kick Ronny down the stairs as a toddler.

    • Passerby6497@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah, it’s only a gaffe if your base isn’t stupid enough to already believe the brainless bullshit that falls out of your talk hole.

  • Kalkaline @leminal.space
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    4 months ago

    What exactly do people see in Trump? He’s got no idea what happened at Gettysburg, why even bring it up?

    • protist@mander.xyz
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      He lets people who “believe in him” let go of all guilt, shame, and self-doubt. It doesn’t matter if you’re racist, sexist, or homophobic, it doesn’t matter if you commit crimes, perpetrate injustice, blaspheme, or maliciously harm others, as long as you believe in Trump, he forgives you. It’s intoxicating to some people. He’s like the opposite of Jesus. Some kind of “anti-Jesus.”

      As far as why Trump even brought it up, he’s a narcissist who has never had boundaries or been held accountable for anything. He just says and does whatever he wants in the moment.

      • SwampYankee@mander.xyz
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        4 months ago

        He’s like the opposite of Jesus. Some kind of “anti-Jesus.”

        I wonder if the bible has anything to say about that…

      • A Phlaming Phoenix@lemm.ee
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        4 months ago

        anti-Jesus

        You might say the Jesus character in the Bible is a projection of the Yahweh character’s internal need to excuse his own horrendous behavior in the same way that Trump excuses his base’s behaviors.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        It doesn’t matter if you’re racist, sexist, or homophobic, it doesn’t matter if you commit crimes, perpetrate injustice, blaspheme, or maliciously harm others, as long as you believe in Trump, he forgives you. It’s intoxicating to some people. He’s like the opposite of Jesus.

        I hate to burst your bubble, but that literally is the canonical conceptualization of Jesus.

        “As long as you accept him into your heart as your lord and savior, all is forgiven” is basically the lifeblood of modern Christianity. It’s why you have people proselytizing to death row inmates to “save them” before execution.

        There’s a lot of other aspects that are antithetical to canonical Jesus, who I don’t recall having golden toilets or being tried for fraud in paying off a porn star to keep quiet about an extramarital affair - but “he forgives everything” is pretty on brand.

        • protist@mander.xyz
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          Yeah I get that, and could have expounded more. He is just like Jesus in that one way, but he actively encourages bad behavior and is basically the anti-Christ in many other ways

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      What di they see in him? He is a schoolyard bully with opposition defiant disorder, a fraud, a racist, and a rapist. They are looking in a mirror and they approve.

    • aibler@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He’s the red team pick, so the red team likes him. No different from whoever the blue team pick is for the blue team. I know this seems simplistic and stupid. The reason it seems that way is because it is, in fact, simplistic and stupid.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
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        You asked for a rebuttal below, so here’s a quick one:

        You present a clearly false dichotomy.

        If your hypothesis of “no difference” was true, we should expect to see extensive Biden merchandise worn by the “blue team” and golden statues of him.

        Biden isn’t beloved and worshipped by Democrats. They just think “this guy is a lot less bad than derpy Hitler” and maybe even “you know, despite inheriting a lot of lemons in his first term this old guy is pretty decent at making lemonade.”

        That is markedly different from the “red team” who is photoshopping their candidate onto muscle bound bodies and desecrating the flag with that abomination which they then turn into boxer shorts to wear to rallies where they chant for the Biblical destruction of the other team.

        So yeah, you’re getting downvoted. Because it’s a ridiculous false dichotomy that’s readily apparent to any objective analysis. Even if there’s a kernel of truth in there being rampant partisanship and team identity, the literal worship of the right for Trump is unique to them.

      • CaptainSpaceman@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        You’re right

        Dichotomies provide limited options, so choose choice! Choose Ranked Choice or STAR voting or something

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        LMK when the blue team guys are taking campaign notes from Nazi Germany, selling classified documents to America’s adversaries, or committing insurrections and then we can bothsides this one.

      • Dr. Bob@lemmy.ca
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        4 months ago

        Dude. It’s even stupider than that. It sounds like cynical ignorance masquerading as profound clarity.

      • Talaraine@fedia.io
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        I don’t know why you’re getting downvotes, it’s true. The DNC and RNC railroad unfit picks to the ballot every damn time based on criteria that are NOT GOOD FOR YOU, ONLY THEM. All y’all who don’t see this are blind.

        I agree with CaptainSpaceman. Choose CHOICE!

        • admiralteal@kbin.social
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          Oh, he’s getting downvotes for being a bothsider.

          The dems have changed profoundly between Obama and Biden. Doesn’t even take any kind of deep political knowledge to see that. No, they haven’t become a revolutionary socialist party, but sorry, democracy doesn’t mean getting exactly what you want all the time. The party is vastly different. Maybe not as different as the Republicans from Bush to Trump, where they abandoned all pretense of Liberalism and switched to being a fascist cult of personality, but different nevertheless.

          The bothsiders like you and he pretend political parties never change and aren’t influenced by their voter at all, contrary to evidence that anyone who had even PRETENDED to follow news and politics during their life would have seen. Then use that complete nonsense premise to justify the argument that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, it’s all the same, you shouldn’t bother.

          It’s just a brain-dead political take. One that actively and constantly suppresses political turnout, hands elections to the far right, and prevents the exact progress you claim you want.

          • Talaraine@fedia.io
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            You’re interpreting my take as brain dead when you haven’t read it. These parties do have better candidates and they never make it to the ballot. The DNC and RNC are directly to blame.

  • ickplant@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    These are his actual words… or word salad:

    Union was saved by the immortal heroes at Gettysburg. Gettysburg. What an unbelievable battle that was, the battle of Gettysburg. What an unbelievable… I mean, it was so much and so interesting and so vicious and horrible and so beautiful in so many different ways. It represented such a big portion of the success of this country. Gettysburg, wow. I go to Gettysburg, PA to look and to watch. And the statement of Robert E Lee, who’s no longer in favor. Did you ever notice that? No longer in favor. “Never fight uphill, me boys, never fight uphill.” They were fighting uphill, he said. Wow, that was a big mistake. He lost his great general, and they were fighting. “Never fight uphill, me boys,” but it was too late.

    • darkpanda@lemmy.ca
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      Everything he says sounds like it’s being said by someone taking an oral test on a topic they know nothing about and have never studied but their gigantic and undeserved ego won’t allow them to admit their total and complete ignorance on the subject at hand.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      He’s like the presidential version of the Nigerian prince scam email. That email contains a bunch of intentional misspellings and grammatical errors because the phishers want to weed out people who can think and reason correctly.

    • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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      That’s it? This is more coherent than usual. We aren’t discussing the Air Force bases during the American Revolution so it was one of the better days for demented Donald.

  • BoofStroke@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    That wasn’t a gaffe. It’s his normal way of not knowing a damned thing about any subject and just spewing random adjectives.

      • MutilationWave@lemmy.world
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        I mean I can’t stand the dude but some of his voters have to be strategic. I’ll be voting for Biden but he certainly isn’t the most accurate representative of my thoughts. Quite the opposite in most things really.

        • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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          I hear you, but it sure seems like the people who vote for Trump are fairly happy with him, whereas the people who vote for Biden are dissatisfied that they don’t have a better option. I would say this is anecdotal, but that seems to be the mainstream media’s take on it, so I can’t be the only one seeing this.

  • Addv4@lemmy.world
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    Not joking, I saw a couple of excerpts from the speech shortly on here, and thought it was just a meme. Didn’t even realize it was real until the next day when I saw the clip of him saying it. Just originally thought it was just too dumb to say, even for Trump.

  • BrokenGlepnir@lemmy.world
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    The quote he made up reeks of lost cause mentality. The idea that Lee lost because his generals didn’t follow his grand wisdom has been around since right after the war. There was a southern journalist who lost a defamation case to a general he claimed didn’t adhere to orders. I think some lost cause circles still bring it up. Despite winning the case the guy was military not pr, and didn’t know how to use the money to repair his reputation from a guy who professionally spreads information (disinformation in this case).

  • n0m4n@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Compare “potatoe” to Trump’s speech. This speech needs to be played again and again as a campaign ad gift from Trump.

    • nickiwest@lemmy.world
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      I am old enough to remember that. My, how times have changed.

      Also, remember the time that Howard Dean tried to stir up some excitement among his campaign supporters and was knocked as “not being presidential”?

      This is truly the Darkest Timeline™.

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        I wish that labeling oneself a “news” network came with the burden of being required to have even the slightest amount of integrity.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    DON’T FIGHT UPHILL ME BOYS!

    such a famous quote, delivered with all the gravitas that it warrants

    • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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      Tinfoil hat time… Repeated misquotes like this make me wonder if it’s a signal to someone who he isn’t able to contact directly because his communications are closely monitored.

      It’s easy to say he’s just dumb, but clearly he’s quite capable. But maybe he’s just using filler words because he has fuck-all to say.

      • Natanael@slrpnk.net
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        He is in fact very dumb.

        More specifically, he has broken impulse control (even affects his speech), a small vocabulary, poor memory recall (all these combined results in his “bigly” choice of words), and he has a ridiculously small minded world view and very limited understanding of other humans (“theory of mind”). In the last few years he’s also becoming much more prone to losing his train of thought and failing to comprehend things.

        • michaelnik@lemmy.world
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          This version of TrumpGPT does not have enough parameters, so it hallucinates all the time. But the presidential version will be much better! /s

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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        He kept the stolen classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom next to a copy machine. He is far too fucking dumb for a covert signal delivered publicly.

        There are no consequences for any of his actions so there is no need for it either. He’ll just go on national TV and literally say, “everyone in the hate group, stand by.”

        • mPony@lemmy.world
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          He is far too fucking dumb for a covert signal delivered publicly

          The guy that said “RUSSIA… IF YOU’RE LISTENING…” on TV? Yes, your assessment is correct.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          He’ll just go on national TV and literally say, “everyone in the hate group, stand by.”

          Didnt he already do that?

          • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
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            Yes. After a full year of saying he won’t accept election results unless he wins. And then we had an insurrection. So it is cool that even to this day we have clowns on social media pretending he didn’t attack the country.

        • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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          Looking down on your enemies is a surefire way to get surprised by them, just sayin.

          Hell, everyone laughed and called him a circus act during the run up to his election, convinced he wouldnt win so no one dealt with him seriously, and look what happened? we got 4 years of Trumpism, stacked courts, the loss of Roe v Wade, and an epidemic resulted in over a million deaths, most of which would have been preventable if not for him and his actions.

          So, sure, laugh at him. Mock him… Just stop underestimating him.

          • 😈MedicPig🐷BabySaver😈@lemmy.world
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            Again, Trump is a moronic monkey. It’s not his intelligence, smarts or whatever you want to label it. It’s his team that makes things happen and it’s the retarded voters that like him.

            I’m not underestimating anything. The election is going to be a shit show and I’m positive the MAGA nuts will actually kill people on election day.

            • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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              I didnt label anything. I said don’t underestimate him.

              You’re the one coming out swinging wildly about his intelligence and being the living embodiment of the kind of attitude I was warning against in a petulant fit for some god forsaken reason.

                • A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world
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                  And none of your petulant flailing has anything to do at all with what I’ve said.

                  Which you’d realize if you replied to what I said, instead of replying to what you imagine/wish I said.

                  Literally doing the exact same thing that got him elected the first time, but you’re too far up your own ass to see it.

        • Syn_Attck@lemmy.today
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          So dumb he managed to find himself elected president of the United States, even.

          ‘Trump dumb’ is dangerous thinking.

  • anon6789@lemmy.world
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    I thought I was going crazy thinking he must have held a second rally, because Gettysburg isn’t anywhere near where he was speaking. The place he was at is as close to NYC or almost any part of the Jersey Shore as it was to Gettysburg.

    To just randomly go into a speech about how General Lee isn’t as beloved as he used to be is really out of nowhere and how it could be directed to anyone other than some racist types is beyond me.

    I really hope my state can start to heal itself if we can whomp the Rs again this election. There’s still a rabid base of these supporters though, but they’ve been laying a bit low. I’ve been seeing signs up all over for Mark Houck instead of Trump, so I looked up who this guy was and he twice assaulted a 72-year-old abortion clinic escort.

    Houck was accused of physically assaulting Bruce Love, a 72-year-old clinic escort, in October 2021. Love was attempting to escort two patients exiting the Philadelphia clinic when Houck “forcefully shoved” him to the ground, according to the Justice Department. On a separate occasion, Houck allegedly verbally confronted the escort and shoved him to the ground outside the clinic. Love sustained injuries that required medical attention.

    However, Houck said he spoke outside of abortion clinics each week and sometimes brought his 12-year-old son along. He said he shoved Love after the clinic escort invaded his son’s personal space and yelled at him.

    This is who the Rs are trying to get to push out their long term somewhat moderate current Republican rep.

    Vote 'em out, me boys!