Stephen Colbert rips into Trump's climate gaffe

Stephen Colbert mimic’s Donald Trump’s blunder pronouncing the word ‘climate’, referring to it as ‘clime’

Stephen Colbert poked fun at Donald Trump, who struggled to pronounce the word “climate” at a recent New Hampshire campaign rally.

The Late Show host ran a clip of the former president at the event on Saturday speaking about electric vehicles, appearing to have issues with pronouncing the word “climate,” referring to it as “clime.”

“They don’t work well in cold weather, and they don’t go far,” Mr Trump said, while speaking about Joe Biden’s commitment to the transition to electric vehicles.

“But it’s certainly not great for your clime. Your clime. They call it climate.”

“Your clime, your clime, they call it climate,” Mr Colbert said on Monday’s show, mimicking Mr Trump seemingly struggling with his words.

“I would have gotten that word on my first try if I weren’t for my brai, my brai… They call it brain damage,” the host continued to say, pretending to be Mr Trump, also imitating Trump’s infamous hand gestures.

Mr Colbert’s impression of Mr Trump’s blunder comes after former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley pondered if her Republican candidate opponent was “mentally fit”.

Trump appeared to say ‘clime’ instead of ‘climate’ at his rally in Manchester, New Hampshire ('The Late Show with Stephen Colbert')

Speaking at another campaign event on Friday, Mr Trump appeared to confuse Ms Haley with Nancy Pelosi.

He talked about the January 6 riot and how Ms Haley, who he said was “in charge of security”, responded to the incident.

“I wasn’t even in DC on January 6,” she said on Saturday at her campaign event. “They’re saying he got confused. That he was talking about something else. He was talking about Nancy Pelosi.”

The responsibility of assessing security during the attack on the Capitol would not have fallen to Ms Haley even if she was the speaker of the House; instead, that lies with the Capitol Police Board, which has the capacity to accept help from the National Guard.

“I’m not saying anything derogatory, but when you’re dealing with the pressures of a presidency, we can’t have someone else that we question whether they’re mentally fit to do this. We can’t,” she said.

Mr Trump then announced at his own rally, just after these comments by his opponent, that he “aced” a recent cognitive test – at the same campaign rally on Saturday, where iy seemed he struggled to pronounce the word “climate.”

“I don’t know if you saw, but a few months ago, I took a cognitive test my doctor gave me,” Mr Trump said.

“I said, ‘give me a cognitive test, just so we can you know,’ because you know what the standards were, and I aced it,” he added.

This is not the first time Mr Trump has confused his political rivals. On Thursday, Mr Trump seemingly mixed up President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama during an appearance on Fox News.

Mr Biden, who is frequently mocked by Mr Trump for his old age, took to social media to post clips of Mr Trump mixing up Ms Haley and Ms Pelosi, and himself and Mr Obama.

The president posted the video on X on Sunday and wrote: “I don’t agree with Nikki Haley on everything, but we agree on this much: She is not Nancy Pelosi.”