Trump crowd goes silent as he confuses Biden and Obama again

‘Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,’ Trump says

The crowd of Trump supporters gathered in Richmond, Virginia to hear Donald Trump speak on Saturday night went silent as the former president appeared to mix up Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama yet again.

“Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled,” Mr Trump said on Saturday.

“I know them both very well and we will restore peace through strength. Get that war settled. It’s a bad war. And Putin has so little respect for Obama that he’s starting to throw around the nuclear word,” Mr Trump added, seemingly in the false belief that Mr Biden’s former boss remains in charge.

There were plenty of moments during Mr Trump’s campaign events in Greensboro, North Carolina and later in Richmond when he appeared to struggle to deliver his speech or seemed to be confused.

The digital rapid response team of the Biden campaign ridiculed the former president in a number of posts on X, writing that “a confused Trump refers to himself in the third person while reading his teleprompter,” and adding that “a confused Trump claims he passed veterans legislation that was signed by President Obama in 2014”.

The Biden campaign also wrote that “Trump says he was ‘purposely’ confused when he claimed Nikki Haley was the Speaker: ‘I purposely mix up names’”.

Ron Filipkowski, an attorney and former Republican, added that “this will be yet another one of the 127 other instances where tomorrow Trump will claim he mixed up Obama and Biden again on purpose”.

The US attorney for the Northern District of Alabama from 2009 to 2017, Joyce Alene wrote on X: “We need to talk about why there is so much focus on Biden’s age, as he navigates multiple tough situations effectively, and so little on Trump, who can’t even remember who the current president, his November opponent, is.”

“Instead of covering this in detail, and pressing the campaign for answers, everyone’s going to do another story on Biden’s age,” Tom Nichols of The Atlantic wrote.

“Guys. You would take away the car keys if this was your friend or family member. He is running to stay out of prison and get his hands on the nuclear codes,” Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko said.

Sarah Longwell, the founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, noted that “this guy’s gonna win the GOP primary by massive margins on Tuesday. Congrats GOP. Congrats”.