Donald Trump was involved in another embarrassing gaffe at the White House as he hosted African leaders for lunch sparking fresh fears about his current state of mind. The US President was filmed talking to Liberia’s President Joseph Boakai, a fluent English speaker and business graduate.
The West African was quick to express his gratitude to the White House incumbent for arranging the meeting. “We just want to thank you so much for this opportunity,” Boakai said graciously to his host. Appreciating the gesture, Trump replied: “Well thank you and such good English. Where did you learn to speak so beautifully. Were you educated, where?”
The African leader appeared somewhat unsettled and simply replied: “Yes, Sir”. Whereupon Trump asked: “In Liberia?” Again the polite reply came: “Yes, Sir.”
Still unaware of his faux pas, the US President blundered on: “Well, that’s very interesting. It’s beautiful English. I have people at this table can’t speak nearly as well.”
The US President was widely ridiculed on social media for his embarrassing gaffe. One wrote: “Completely embarrassing moment ….Dummy humiliated himself.”
While another fumed: “Trump is the dumbest, most ignorant and incompetent president in US history.” A third took aim at Trump’s MAGA supporters, who rallied to the President’s defence, saying: “They truly will defend Trump over anything he does, no matter how senile, ignorant or deranged.”
Liberia was founded by freed slaves from the US and English is the state’s official language. The country has a diverse array of indigenous languages and a number of creolised dialects.
Boakai himself can read and write in the indigenous Mendi and Kissi languages, but he converses in Liberia’s official tongue and lingua franca — English. In another clip from the same meeting, Trump appears to have no idea to whom he is talking.
Turning to another of the participants at the meeting, the US President says: “Maybe we’re gonna have to go a bit quicker than this, because we have a whole schedule.
“If I could just have your name and country it would be great.”
Trump has a chequered history when it coms to Africa, provoking a diplomatic backlash in his first term after telling Senator Dick Durbin that the continent was a collection of “s***hole countries.” The US president denied he ever used the phrase.
