Donald Trump can’t even get the name of “Hurricane Irma” right

If you’re holding out any hope that Donald Trump might be able to effectively lead the nation through the rescue and recovery efforts that are set to follow in the wake of Hurricane Irma, you probably weren’t paying attention when he used his Hurricane Harvey visit to brag about crowd size while trying to sell hats. You’ll have even less faith in Trump’s abilities to deal with Irma once you realize that he doesn’t even know the storm’s name.

Trump posted a video to Twitter today in which he read a prepared script about Hurricane Irma. True to form whenever he’s working from a teleprompter, he used bombastic phrases like “absolutely destructive” and “totally united” while still somehow managing to come off as detached and robotic. One would think he was a football announcer trying to sound excited about a game between two teams he didn’t care about. But in Trump’s defense, he did at least try to convey the right message for once. The trouble: it’s unlikely anyone got past the first few seconds of the video, when he comically screwed up the storm’s name.

Trump started off his video by garbling the name of Hurricane Irma so badly that there’s debate across social media as to whether he was trying to say “Irmer” or “Immer” or something along those lines. You’d think someone in his administration would have caught this bizarre slip-up and gotten him to do it over, but no, Trump really did release a video in which he got the name of the hurricane wrong. Watch for yourself below (link):

Perhaps we’re being too harsh. But the entire reason for Donald Trump to post this video was to instill confidence in those being affected by Hurricane Irma. If he couldn’t be bothered to re-do the video in order to get the name of the hurricane correct, it creates at least some concern that his real world response to the storm may not be any more thoughtful.

Bill Palmer

Bill Palmer is the publisher of the political news outlet Palmer Report

www.palmerreport.com