Trump rides time machine, says US has cultural, political heritage to Ancient Rome and has social media up in arms
President Donald Trump loves controversies and he continuously oscillates between them at home and abroad.
While the impeachment procedure against him gains steam for allegedly trying to influence a foreign power to undermine a domestic opponent and Washington faces a backlash over its Syria policy, the 73-year-old Trump courted another controversy on Wednesday, October 16.
While the Republican leader was accused of making a series of false claims during his during a meeting at the Oval Office and a subsequent joint press conference with Italian President Sergio Mattarella, one of his remarks turned the observers off.
Trump claimed during the press conference with Mattarella that the US has a "shared political and cultural history" with Italy because of ancient Rome.
"The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to ancient Rome," he said.
It is not wrong to say that America's Founding Fathers were inspired by certain features of the Roman republic — like political ideals and architecture — but Trump's observation came under heavy scrutiny as it was interpreted as the US and Rome had been allies in history.
Actor and radio personality John Fugelsang said Trump spoke about the US and Italy sharing heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome just a couple of days after the 527th anniversary of Christopher Columbus discovering the New World. He also mocked the White House for repeating Trump's words on Twitter.
Another critic said the US is only 243 years old (since 1776) while Ancient Rome had existed thousands of years ago (753 BC - 476 AD).
However, there were also people who came to the president's rescue. According to them, Trump's words were more in spirit than co-existence in time.
"He said 'The United States and Italy are bound together by a shared cultural and political heritage dating back thousands of years to Ancient Rome', which is true. Perhaps you need to take Western Civ 101 again, if you ever did," said writer Phineas Fahrquar.
The Trump-Mattarella press conference also made headlines for some other bizarre reasons.
While the US president reportedly called his guest "President Mozzarella" a number of times, an Italian translator's facial expressions sitting behind the two heads of state as Trump spoke also tickled the audience's funny bone.
They felt the woman translator was surprised beyond belief by the American president's take on several issues.
Trump's press conferences with foreign leaders have become a top draw nowadays for outlandish elements.
Earlier this month, Finnish President Sauli Niinistö was in the US and his joint presser with Trump not only saw the host lashing out at a journalist over domestic political issues but even the visitor telling Trump that he has a great democracy and asked him to keep it going on.
For many, it was nothing but a subtle dig at the noisy democracy that America sees under the mercurial Republican. Even during his earlier days in office. Trump regularly made headlines for having peculiar handshakes with foreign heads of state.