Donald Trump finds a scapegoat for his airport debacle

| 4:30 pm EDT July 5, 2019
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Last night, among other patently absurd things, Donald Trump claimed that George Washington and his Continental Army won the Revolutionary War because they “took over airports.” He also strongly implied that the Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812, were the same thing. The average eighth grader knows that these things aren’t true. But apparently Trump doesn’t know any better – and now he’s found a scapegoat for it.

This morning Donald Trump was speaking with reporters outside the White House when the subject of his airport gaffe came up. According to Geoff Bennett of NBC News, Trump claimed that it only happened because of a faulty teleprompter, and because it’s “hard to read in the rain.” Wait a minute, which is it? Did the teleprompter malfunction, or was the rain in his eyes? If he couldn’t see the teleprompter, how did he know it was malfunctioning?

Either way, it doesn’t much matter. Trump’s position is that his numerous gaffes were because he couldn’t see the text of his prepared speech. That’s a nightmare for anyone who’s trying to deliver an important speech, of course. But it also offers an opportunity to find out what’s behind the veil, as the speech giver is left with nothing but his own wits and knowledge. Trump just gave away that he doesn’t have any of either.

Left to his own devices, we learned last night that Donald Trump doesn’t know that there were no airports in colonial times. We learned that he doesn’t know the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 were two different wars fought in two different centuries. And he still doesn’t know who Frederick Douglass is. But America knows that Trump doesn’t know anything – and no technical glitch can be blamed for that.