Trump made three major mix-ups in under 10 minutes at the NATO summit, but he has spent years mocking other politicians for doing the same thing

President Donald Trump made three notable verbal errors in under 10 minutes during the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, on July 8. While seated next to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump mistakenly referred to Iran as the Islamic Republic of Japan, stumbled over the acronym for the Iran nuclear deal, and asked reporters if they had a question for President Vladimir Putin.

The errors stand out because Trump has spent years calling out other politicians for the same kind of mistakes. He played a video of Joe Biden’s verbal gaffes at a 2022 rally and mocked Biden during the 2024 campaign for mixing up names. In 2018, he also joined criticism of Barack Obama over a misstatement about the number of states in the country, posting on X, “Can you imagine if I said that,” and calling it the “story of the year!”

One of the more striking moments at the NATO summit came when Trump recounted a past military incident. He said, “I told this story yesterday: We had 111 missiles shot by the Islamic Republic of Japan. They were shot at the aircraft carrier over a period of about one hour.” At the same event, he referred to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action as the “JCPOC,” calling it a “terrible deal.”

Trump’s verbal mix-ups have played out across months of public appearances

This kind of error has come up repeatedly in recent months, according to CNN. In June, while talking about communication equipment on a refurbished aircraft, Trump referred to Elon Musk as “Leon.” In May, he hosted the Indiana University football team at the White House and asked where head coach Curt Cignetti was, even though Cignetti was standing right next to him. 

That same month, he also attributed the Afghanistan withdrawal to Obama rather than Biden, saying, “They lost 13 people leaving an airport, Obama. Thirteen very good people that I got to know their families.”

Trump has also mixed up names and titles on several occasions. In July, he apparently confused Small Business Administration head Kelly Loeffler with rapper Nicki Minaj, saying, “And he’s married to a person who’s doing a phenomenal job at the SBA, small business, Nicki Minaj who’s so incredible. They call it small business, Nicki.” 

In April, he mixed up White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt with strategist Kellyanne Conway, and described Conway’s role as someone who screams at the media, a description that more closely matches Leavitt’s position.

Geography has also been a recurring area of confusion for Trump. During a January speech in Davos, Switzerland, he repeatedly mixed up Greenland and Iceland, saying, “I’m helping Europe, I’m helping NATO, and until the last few days when I told them about Iceland, they loved me.” 

He also said, “Our stock market took the first dip yesterday because of Iceland. So Iceland’s already cost us a lot of money.” In both instances, the context suggests he was referring to Greenland. This can be part of a pattern where he has called NATO a paper tiger.

In a November speech in Miami, Trump referred to South Africa instead of South America when talking about people fleeing tyranny. He has also previously claimed to have resolved a conflict between Azerbaijan and Albania, when the actual conflict involved Armenia, not Albania.

Even in discussions about high-stakes diplomacy, geographic details appeared to get muddled. Trump once said he was traveling to Russia to meet with Putin, when the summit was reportedly set to take place in Alaska, not Russia. Similar criticisms of the alliance have led to questions about US membership being beyond reconsideration.