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Donald Trump Just Announced New Sanctions Against a Long Dead Iranian Leader, and the Jokes Came Rolling In

Donald Trump Just Announced New Sanctions Against a Long Dead Iranian Leader, and the Jokes Came Rolling In
The White House

Seriously?

Evan Brechtel
By Evan BrechtelJun 25, 2019
Evan Brechtel
Evan Brechtel is a writer and actor living in New York. A Fordham University graduate, he also writes a monthly column for Chosen Magazine and is currently working on a historical fiction novel about New York queer bars over the twentieth century.
See Full Bio

President Donald Trump announced retaliatory sanctions on Iran on Monday after an unarmed American drone was shot over Iranian airspace, but in doing so, he flubbed the name of Iran's supreme leader.

Surrounded by Vice President Mike Pence and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin in the Oval Office, Trump said the sanctions would be imposed on Supreme Leader "Ayatollah Khomeini."

The problem? Ayatollah Khomeini has been dead since 1989.

Watch below:

Trump said:

"The assets of Ayatollah Khomeini and his office will not be spared from the sanctions."

Ayatollah Khomeini was the first Supreme Leader of Iran. After his death in 1989, he was replaced by Iran's current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.

The White House transcript of the announcement lists the proper spelling "Ayatollah Khamenei," ignoring Trump's gaffe altogether.

In response, Twitter immediately came in with the jokes.

Some began alluding to Trump's Frederick Douglass gaffe in 2017.

Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, brutally responded to the sanctions, claiming that the White House was suffering from a mental disability.

There is one thing everyone agrees with Trump on, however:

Awkward.

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