Trump appears to claim U.S. invented the wheel and the need to “protect” Thomas Edison, who is dead
During an interview on Wednesday morning, the President again displayed his troubling understanding of basic history while indulging his obsessive need to take credit for all of America’s accomplishments.
After praising union-busting billionaire Elon Musk for “doing good with the rockets,” the grammatically-challenged Trump stressed how important it was that we “protect Thomas Edison” and “all these people that came up with the lightbulb and the wheel and all of these things.”
Trump seems to believe the wheel was invented in the United States: “We have to protect all of these people that came up with, originally, the light bulb and the wheel and all of these things.” pic.twitter.com/re6CyRi6HY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020
For the record, Thomas Edison died in 1931 and wheels were first used in Iraq around 5,000 years ago, so it’s not clear what exactly the President was trying to get at here. He did not expand upon what is threatening our “geniuses and all of these things,” though it’s conceivable he’s referring to Chinese intellectual property theft.
Add your name to tell McConnell to allow impeachment witnesses. We demand Trump get a fair trial!
Incredibly but somehow inevitably, this is not even the first time the president has had trouble with his wheel history. He once infamously claimed that the wheel was invented prior to the “wall” in a truly bizarre attempt to justify his planned border wall, arguing that since wheels work, walls work. “Nothing like a wall!”
POTUS: “They say a wall is medieval, well so is a wheel. A wheel is older than a wall,” Trump said, later adding: “The wheel is older than the wall, you know that? There are some things that work. You know what? A wheel works and a wall works. Nothing like a wall.”
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) January 10, 2019
Though we’re all somewhat used to the president’s weekly head-scratching moments, it’s still crucial that we continue to point out these flickers of insanity and insist that this should not be treated as normal.
This man is a constant embarrassment to all of us, and now he’s prancing about representing the United States in front of the world talking about how we need to protect dead men and our most significant invention, the wheel, along with a man who is “doing good at the rockets.”
November 2020 can’t come soon enough.
