World · 8 July 2026
Trump confuses Iran for Japan while praising US missiles
The Trump White House (Wikimedia, Creative Commons CC0 License) | The Presidential Office of Ukraine (Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA-4.0)
Donald Trump mistakenly said US aircraft carriers were attacked by "the Islamic Republic of Japan" during a meeting with Ukraine's President Zelensky. He appeared to be referencing an attack that Iranian forces carried out earlier this year, but Japan has not fired on the US for almost a century. Trump also mixed up Zelensky with Russia's leader Vladimir Putin, causing laughter in the room.
Reported by The Independent · How we write briefs