President Donald Trump shocked observers at an Oval Office event celebrating athleticism and young athletes when he suddenly launched into a rant about the Iran war, nuclear weapons and his continual gripes over losing the 2020 presidential election, which he still falsely claims was “rigged.”
His wildly inappropriate comments to children were reflected in the faces and behavior of the six kids who were gathered around Trump on Tuesday morning, May 5, for a proclamation signing ceremony in the Oval Office celebrating athletes and American athleticism.
Top Trump Cabinet officials were also present, including Defense Chief Pete Hegseth, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, and Health Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr., who continued smiling and nodding as the president went off script, erupting into a familiar diatribe in front of an unconventional audience.
“We’re going to continue to win, win, win. Our country is doing great. We’re breaking records in every way,” Trump bragged, before feeling the need to explain himself and his unapproved war on Iran to the children at his side.
“It’s too bad, but I had to do it. We can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon. You might be too young for this,” Trump rightfully sensed, but it didn’t stop him.
“They probably know. They probably know better than most people, but you can’t let a bunch of lunatics have a nuclear weapon, or the world would be in trouble. The world would be in trouble,” the president nonsensically repeated as the young people excited to see Trump up close and personal began losing interest.
Several of the kids, including a young boy on Trump’s right and a smaller girl on his left, began fidgeting and looking around as Trump droned on, pivoting to another favorite boast, hoping to distract from the worsening economic concerns of an increasing number of Americans by crowing about the stock market, something that doesn’t impact most people.
“So, we just hit records at on the Dow. It was supposed to be done in five or six years. Somebody said it couldn’t be possible to reach 50 on the Dow. And I reached 50 in the first year, and then I reached 7000 and, by the way, just set a new record,” Trump bragged as the children clearly didn’t know what he was talking about or care for that matter.
The young girl next to him became distracted by a pen in her hand, turning it over and gazing at it as the boy, trying to smile, shifted, leaning on Trump’s chair.
“And now we have to take a hit,” Trump explained in a soft tone, looking at the kids as if he was reading a fairy tale. “We have to journey down to Iran to take the nuclear weapon. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks,” he insisted, repeating his justification for his war on Tehran, which he launched several weeks after he launched a military attack on the Islamic Republic on February 28 amid constantly shifting goals, objectives, and mixed messaging.
At one point, Trump told the children, “We would have had an Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now.”
Trump then jumped on his soapbox, complaining about losing the 2020 “rigged election,” which courts, including the Supreme Court, repeatedly have determined was free and fair and that Joe Biden legitimately won.
Social media exploded when one Threads user posted a freeze-frame of one of the boys’ faces, sporting an uncomfortable, forced smile as he looked around at the other adults in the room, seemingly wondering what the heck Trump was even talking about.
“This boy is all of us,” a Threads user hilariously commented.
Another weighed in, “Nothing like teaching kids to be a sore loser.”
Threads user Jazz Geek probably said what most people are thinking. “At this point, they’re the only demographic that could possibly believe him.”
One of the biggest ironies of this Oval Office event with schoolchildren and his education secretary on hand is that Trump’s 2027 proposed budget cuts more than $2 billion from educational programs, something he tried to do last year but Congress rejected in favor of keeping education funding steady.