President Donald Trump spent weeks complaining about an embarrassing public mishap that unfolded with first lady Melania Trump right beside him and another that played out in front of world leaders.
Trump struggled to let the moments go, he blamed others, demanded answers and repeatedly returned to the pain long after it was over.
Nearly a year later, someone else decided to bring it back up and made his infamous ordeal the punchline with a room full of people that couldn’t contain their laughter.
It happened Wednesday, Aug. 5, during a press conference in Toronto when Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suddenly found himself dealing with a teleprompter failure of his own.
“I would like to inform you that the teleprompter has ceased to function,” Carney announced.
Then he couldn’t help himself, taking a comical jab at Trump as reporters laughed.
“Unlike a certain world leader, I do not view this as a conspiracy,” he quipped.
He was referring to the debacle last September as the United Nations in New York involving Trump and a broken teleprompter and escalator.
When Trump, his wife, Melania Trump, and their entourage first arrived at the building in New York they got on an escalator that suddenly stopped working. Then before Trump was set to deliver his address to world leaders, his teleprompter went down.
He griped about it on and off throughout his entire speech and for weeks later. Trump and his cronies first blamed the U.N. for the escalator mishap and the prompter malfunction, lashing out at the world body and accusing it of trying to make Trump look bad.
It turns out Trump’s own team was responsible for operating the prompter and its failure, not the U.N., and an investigation determined one of the president’s videographers triggered a safety function on the escalator causing it to suddenly stop.
Later Wednesday evening during a speech in Las Vegas Trump took aim again at the U.S.’ longtime ally.
Trump was raging about the U.S. being “manipulated by everyone” when he veered off course.
“By Canada. Canada’s nasty. They are,” he insisted as the MAGA audience snickered.
“They’re nasty. People think Canada, they’re nasty, people, I love the people but they’re nasty. Nasty leadership,” and angry Trump with a new bouffant-style hairdo huffed.
It’s unclear if Trump was responding to Carney’s jab or if he was just trying to somehow justify his latest round of tariffs on Canadian goods that he announced last month.
He jacked up levies on Canadian imports by 50% on what was once one of the U.S.’ most loyal allies, including alcohol, dairy, and U.S. cars over what he called “unequal treatment,” news outlets reported.
Canadians had a field day on social media, with some commenters poking fun at Trump and others daring him to come “up north.”
“We ARE nasty We just hate pedophiles rapists frauds war mongers Classless Fragile ego Narcissistic Race baiting Orange coloured Dictator wannabes guilty as charged,” an X poster proclaimed.
X user Glitter & Spite posted an AI-generated meme of Carney flipping Trump off. Carney is red wearing sunglasses with a red maple leaf ring on his middle finger with the title, “Hey Donald. From Canada,” followed by a Canadian flag.
This commenter dared Trump to come to Canada. “Please come up north so we can kick your ass. See how nasty we can be to a dishonest, immature felon.”
For the new taxes on Canada, Trump cited a 1930 tariff law that hasn’t been invoked in at least 70 years. Trump slapped the new levies on Canada under Section 338 of the Tariff Act.
It’s unclear if it’s a legal move after the Supreme Court recently ruled almost all the tariffs Trump leveled against friend and foe alike last year were illegal, forcing the administration to issue buillions of dollars in refunds.
