President Donald Trump's attempt to smear the Biden administration turned into a self-own while he spoke at the commencement ceremony for the U.S. Coast Guard Academy this week.
Trump spoke as several hundred protesters gathered outside Coast Guard Academy campus in New London, Connecticut. During the nearly hour-long address to cadets and their families, he alternated between praising the graduating class of 2026 and revisiting familiar themes about what he described as the country’s recovery after a period of decline.
At one point, he said:
"Our country is hot. I hate to say, it but I will. A year ago, a year and a half ago, two years ago, the last administration, we were a dead country. Right now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
"We're respected all over the world. You saw that with China just recently, you saw that in Venezuela, and you saw that right now with Iran. Everything's gone: their Navy's gone, their Air Force is gone, just about everything."
"The only question is are we going to finish it up or are they going to be signing a document? Let's see what happens. But we're a hot country. We're the hottest country."
"We're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're the strongest, most powerful military anywhere in the world. There's nobody close."
You can hear what Trump said in the video below.
But there's a problem with Trump's math basic math considering he referred to the U.S. as a “dead country” just “a year ago.”
Trump has already been back in office for roughly 16 months, meaning part of the period he was criticizing would have fallen under his own administration.
The mockery was swift.
Trump did something similar last month after he accidentally criticized his own presidency while attempting to criticize former President Joe Biden's presidency—seemingly forgetting that it wasn't Biden who was in office a year ago.
Trump, while discussing his "No Tax on Tips" policy, claimed the country was an "embarrassment" last year, adding that "All over the world, they laughed at us."
Considering it wasn't Biden who was in office a year ago, Trump might want to rethink who the "embarrassment" really is.
