Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Letter to the editor:

Slip of tongue not worth a lie

President Donald Trump is prone to making verbal gaffes. He recently lied to cover up one of them.

At a televised conference March 22, 2018, Trump committed a gaffe by referring to Lockheed-Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson as “Marilyn Lockheed.” On Nov. 18, while inspecting fire damage in Paradise, Calif., Trump again blundered by erroneously referring to the city as “Pleasure,” Calif. Trump’s most recent gaffe occurred at a March 6 press conference when he referred to Apple CEO Tim Cook as “Tim Apple.”

When that gaffe was exposed, Trump initially told Republican donors that he said “Tim Cook/Apple,” but that the microphone had not picked up “Cook.” However, audiotapes plainly revealed Trump’s explanation to be laughably false. So, Trump tweeted a contrary explanation indicating that he did not say “Cook.” Rather, he claimed that he intentionally said “Tim/Apple as an easy way to save time & words”. (Since the audiotape and Trump’s second explanation flatly contradict his first explanation, the first explanation appears to be a blatant lie.)

Nevertheless, since newspapers face deadlines and other time constraints, they might wish to implement Trump’s purported time-saving strategy. Imagine the man-hours that might be saved if every newspaper in the country eliminated 13 time-wasting letters from “President Donald Trump” and printed only the bold letters (“real dum”) to refer to him.