President Donald Trump stumbled over the pronunciation of “Yosemite” on Tuesday, referring to the national park as “yo-semites.”
He tried again, saying, “yo-seminites.”
The mispronunciation came during a White House event in which Trump was speaking about the country’s national parks and the signing of the Great American Outdoors Act.
“We want every American child to have access to pristine outdoor spaces. When young Americans experience the breathtaking beauty of the Grand Canyon, when their eyes widen in amazement as Old Faithful bursts into the sky, when they gaze upon yo-semites’… yo-seminites’… towering sequoias, their love of country grows stronger and they know that every American has, truly, a duty to preserve this wondrous inheritance and that’s what they’re doing and that’s what we’re doing. We’re preserving an incredible inheritance,” he said.
Online, reaction to the blunder was swift.
“We all laugh, but just remember: if Biden had said this, the Trump campaign would have already cut attack ads on it and Fox News would have devoted a day’s coverage to Biden’s gaffe/dementia etc on Yosemite. The Dems could do far more to weaponize Trump‘s sheer ignorance,” wrote The Intercept columnist Mehdi Hasan on Twitter.
Others made jokes about “yo, Semites” becoming a new greeting among Jewish people or pointed out that Trump pronounced “sequoias” perfectly fine moments after the stumble.
Watch:
Here’s the clip pic.twitter.com/b4NtCuEa2z
— Brennan Murphy (@brenonade) August 4, 2020