In Trump’s world, facts don’t matter, common sense is a liability and all of his staffers are required to act as if human skin can just naturally turn the color of a carrot without assistance.
On Monday, the president of people who let their pets sleep in their beds claimed that the Spanish flu of 1918, which he continues to say happened in 1917, ended World War II. The problem with this statement is that the events happened two decades apart. But why would Trump let history stand in the way of making a point?
“The closest thing is in 1917, they say, the great pandemic. It certainly was a terrible thing where they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people, probably ended the Second World War,” Trump said. “All the soldiers were sick. That was a terrible situation.”
The president may have been talking about the Spanish flu, but the president is also an idiot so he could have been talking about the bird flu, swine flu and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
From USA Today:
The Second World War started in 1939 and ended in 1945 with the surrender of the Axis powers, specifically when Japan surrendered unconditionally after the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities.
A White House official told USA TODAY Trump was talking about World War I, where more soldiers died from the disease than in battle and infected around 500 million globally. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the deployment of troops during the First World War plausibly contributed to the spread of the Spanish Flu due to intercontinental movement and crowded conditions.
I don’t believe that the president was even talking about World War I. I think the White House staff knows that the president is crazier than a shit house rat (this is a phrase I’ve never understood as I don’t know what a shit house is and why a rat living in said shit house would be crazier than a rat who lives in a non-shit house environment, but my uncles used to say it so it must be a thing) and they probably have a list of dates to plug in whenever Trump is out here freestyling off-script.
As it stands, Trump believes that the Fat Boys breakup, the end of the T-Mobile Sidekick, the canceling of High Fidelity and durags under fitted caps all saw their demise thanks to the 1918 flu.
Oh, and for the record, “the Spanish flu did not officially cause the end of World War I. The end of that war came from Germany signing an armistice, which caused the fighting to stop, after suffering great losses on the battlefield,” USA Today notes.
Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), blamed the Trump family for letting the president “stand out there like this.”
Actress and activist Sophia Bush tweeted, “So to recap things we’ve learned since 2016 ... 45 hasn’t read the Constitution, hasn’t read the Bible (but likes to hold one upside down), and clearly never took a US History class. Or ... math? Cool cool, very cool.”
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