Readers of Donald Trump's tweets are accustomed to finding insults, false statements, typos or excessive exclamation marks on their account. But on Sunday, a tweet about his secretary of defense and the situation in Syria included several such derailments.
The tweet started with the most obvious: The US president wrote there of a certain "Mark Esperanto", allegedly US Secretary of Defense. In the social media followed prompt ridicule and malice that the US President could not properly spell the name of his own Pentagon boss, Mark Esper. Trump erased the tweet a little later - and replaced it with the correct spelling. But of course, screenshots of his slip-up had already been made:
The name of Trump's Secretary of Defense is Mark Esper. Not Esperanto. pic.twitter.com/LFrNf7zep3
- Kyle Griffin (@ kylegriffin1) October 20, 2019The president is the subject of such name variations more often. Recently, Trump mistakenly designated NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg as a "Stoltenheim" at a press conference. The Apple CEO Tim Cook he called in a performance at the White House in March - in his presence - "Tim Apple". And he called his own wife Melania in a tweet "Melanie".
Others were fared similarly: Trump had earlier named his former National Security Advisor John Bolton as "Mike Bolton" in the past. He thanked Congressman Kevin McCarthy for a joint appearance, saying, "Thank you, Steve." The head of the defense company Lockheed Martin, Marillyn Hewson, he made "Marillyn Lockheed".
But this current presidential misspeak stands out a bit. After all, the very President who enjoys the greatest pleasure in isolation, borders and nation-state thinking, Esperanto, of all people-at least for a moment-attracts a great deal of attention, that artificial language created to overcome boundaries and emphasize similarities.
Name not the biggest problem
However, the bigger problem, as the New York Times writes, was the part of the tweet that followed the wrong name. Trump quoted his defense minister, Mark Esper (not Esperanto), as saying, "The truce holds up very well, and there are a few minor skirmishes that are quickly over."
Of course, this quote could come from a private conversation between the two. But it seems more like Trump is referring to the public statements made by Esper on the situation in Syria this weekend, writes the New York Times. According to a Reuters reporter, Esper is said to have made a much more cautious statement: "I think overall the ceasefire seems to hold." You see a stabilization of the fronts, but you also get occasionally news about irregular battles.
Most recently, Trump wrote - still in the same tweet: "We bring our soldiers home." Defense Minister Esper, on the other hand, announced on Sunday that he would use the US troops withdrawn from Syria in Iraq.