Donald Trump mistakenly lauds Christians for suppressing civil rights – the opposite of what he was due to say – and his political opponents mock the president, and hint that he was sending a coded message to his base.
“Since the founding of our nation, many of our greatest strides, from gaining our independence to abolition of civil rights to extending the vote for women, have been led by people of faith,” Trump said to a primarily religious audience in a speech during the National Prayer Breakfast.
A transcript released in the aftermath by the White House showed that Trump, who was reading off a teleprompter for the majority of the speech was meant to say “from gaining our independence, to abolition [of slavery], TO civil rights,” which would have given his words the opposite, and expected, meaning.
Predictably rather than letting a small moment in what was an otherwise generous and stately speech – as Trump's tend to be when he is reading rather than free-wheeling – go, the Democrats pounced.
For some this was mere irony.
A Freudian slip.
Another opportunity to poke fun at the president's supposed deficiencies.
Or a chance to suggest that this is all part of Trump's grand plan of hiding words of evil in the plainest of sights.